


I have nothing I can give

by MirandaTam



Series: Jedi Shmi AU [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Discussion of Mandalore, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Injury Recovery, Obi-Wan interacting with children is adorable, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-12 00:37:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7913605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirandaTam/pseuds/MirandaTam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The transition from Jedi to General is a hard one - and the Clone Wars are full of unexpected enemies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title, as always, from the _Prince of Egypt_. I'm starting to run out of these.
> 
>  
> 
> _My son, I have nothing I can give but this chance that you may live._
> 
>  
> 
> This is going to be a bit of an experiment - each chapter is going to be from a different character's perspective, in a series of consecutive events. The other two chapters may not be up for a bit, given that the third chapter is being easier to write than the second chapter, but as always, we'll see.
> 
> There will be non-graphic discussion of overhearing torture in this chapter. Later chapters (definitely 3, highly likely 2) will have minor character death.

The first thing that Obi-Wan notices is that nothing hurts.

The second thing he notices is that everything smells vaguely like bacta.

He tries to sit up, but that doesn’t… doesn’t quite work? He feels strange. Fuzzy.

“Maybe try opening your eyes, Master Kenobi,” the tired voice of a healer suggests.

Oh, all right, he thinks, and opens his eyes.

Then he closes them again, because everything is too bright.

“What…” he croaks out, but his throat is too dry to say anything else.

There’s a light touch at his lips – the rim of a cup. He drinks thankfully, water enhanced with vitamins and a light touch of mint.

“What happened?” He asks when he’s done drinking, and opens his eyes again.

There’s a purple-and-white blur at his bedside that’s probably one of the healers. The rest of the room is calming shades of green. The other beds in the room are full, each one with an unconscious human. That makes sense; they’d want to have species grouped together so that species-appropriate calming techniques could be employed.

Wait. Why are there other beds in the room in the first place?

The healer has seen him look around, growing steadily more confused, and directs his attention back to him. He’s a twi’lek, Obi-Wan realizes – he’s seen the healer around, dark purple mottled by lighter purple in the twi’lek equivalent of vitiligo, but he doesn’t know the healer’s name.

“I’m Ilar Don Eeta, I’ll be the one helping you through your recovery,” the healer says softly. “I know you have a lot of questions, but you’ll be falling asleep again soon. Ask what you need to, and I can answer, for the most part.”

“Why can’t I move my body?” Obi-Wan says.

The healer – Master Don Eeta – sighs. “You took a dart of a very destructive poison to your leg,” he says. “Master Skywalker was able to extract the poison before it spread too far, but it left a lot of damage in its wake. We’ve attempted some reconstruction, but even at this point in time, moving your leg even accidentally would cause an exceptional amount of pain and damage what healing we’ve been able to do. You’ll be able to move again when your leg has healed enough that moving it won’t damage it further.”

Master Don Eeta had danced very nicely around actually saying that they’d artificially paralyzed him from the neck down, Obi-Wan thinks. “Shmi? Anakin? Are they safe?”

“They are,” the healer says. “They and their, ah, bounty hunter friends all safely escaped from Geonosis. You took the worst injury.”

That’s another worry that Obi-Wan can let float away into the Force. As he does, he realizes that oh, he’s tired again, just like the healer had said.

“Yes, you need to sleep more,” Master Don Eeta says, reading his mind in the way that all healers seem to. “There will be time for more questions when you wake.”

“But I have more questions _now_ ,” he protests.

“And I’m sure you’re going to inadvisably try to keep yourself awake so that I can answer them,” the healer says. “So instead of that, you can keep your questions for later and I can give you some sleep medication.”

“But I don’t _want_ to go back to sleep,” Obi-Wan says, though the effect is ruined when he yawns on the last word.

“I’m afraid you’re out of luck, then,” the healer says cheerfully, and presses a button on the machine holding an IV in his arm.

Everything gets very fuzzy, then dark.

Obi-Wan dreams of fire eating his leg from the inside out, of a whirlpool sucking everything down into its depths, into death. There’s someone yelling – no, someone _calling_ , calling is name out from the dark, getting colder and colder, but he can’t move–

In the shifting way of dreams, Obi-Wan is in a field, dirt and grasses and warm sun. He kneels down in Bandomeer’s soil and gazes in wonder at the blooming flowers, all bright and warm and clean, all shades of yellow. He turns and there is Xanatos, dark against the sky, and they stare at each other, the fields melting away into pale clouds.

Obi-Wan blinks, and the clouds resolve themselves into the sheets of the infirmary bed.

“Rise and shine, sleepy-nerd,” a voice says cheerfuly.

Obi-Wan groans and turns over–

He can move his body again.

He shoots up, then falls back down again, his head spinning.

“Yeah, maybe don’t get up _that_ fast,” says Siri’s voice.

Obi-Wan turns over. She’s in the bed next to his.

“Siri,” he says, then sits up again, this time more slowly. He can feel a dull throb coming from his leg, but nothing more than that. There’s no way he’s going to risk moving it, though, not with the look of the brace set up around it.

“There’s a doctor’s report on the bedside table,” Siri says helpfully. “And if you’re any good at datapad hacking, you can probably track down all the things they _aren’t_ saying, too.”

“Maybe later,” Obi-Wan says, and runs a hand through his hair. It’s clean, but that’s no indicator of how long he’s been unconscious. “How long has it been?”

“Four days since the last time you woke up coherently,” Siri says. “About a week before that since you got back from Geonosis.”

“All right,” Obi-Wan says. A week and a half. That’s fairly severe, for a non brain or spinal injury with the Jedi Temple’s level of medical technology. “… Why are you here?”

Siri looks down, and Obi-Wan follows her gaze, to the blankets over her legs.

To the blankets over where her legs should be.

“Vos was on Muunilinst, and things started to go bad,” Siri says quietly. “Aayla and I went out to give him some extra support. It was worse than we’d thought, so they sent more backup, then more. Then… there was a whole army. I heard you found the factory – well, we found where they were shipping them. Master Yoda showed up, with an army of our own. We’re at war now.”

There’s not much Obi-Wan can say to that. Siri has skirted around the question of what had actually happened to cause her to lose her legs, and Obi-Wan isn’t in the mood to push.

They chat a while longer – Siri updates Obi-Wan on the status of all their friends. Bant is still out on Muunilinst, or maybe elsewhere within the galaxy where fighting has broken out, as a battlefield healer. Quinlan is off with a legion of clones fighting somewhere in the galaxy, as is Aayla. Half the Council is in the temple, organizing the Jedi and planning out strategies; the other half is out in the field.

Obi-Wan drifts off again, Siri’s voice quiet and bitter in the background, wondering about the names that Siri isn’t talking about.

 

 

When he wakes again, he has visitors.

“Anakin,” he says. “Shmi. You’re all right?”

“Much better than you are,” Anakin says, and Obi-Wan can see the slight redness in his eyes, hear the way his voice catches. His padawan has been crying, lately.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” Shmi says.

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. Skywalkers, it seems, have a talent for blaming themselves. “And I’m sorry I didn’t see the dart coming,” he says. “Now, are you going to help me out of this bed or not?”

“Hey, slow down, Kenobi,” Siri snaps. “No way you’re breaking out of the infirmary until I can come too.”

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. “Force only knows why you’re still here – I thought the healers would be tired of you by now.”

Shmi rolls her eyes and physically stands in-between their two beds. “Obi-Wan, you’re not breaking out of the infirmary until the healers say you can,” she says, ignoring Obi-Wan’s protest of _then it’s not a breakout_. “Siri, what are you still in here for? Your legs should be ready for prosthetics by now, shouldn’t they?”

“They are,” Siri says, her voice glum though Obi-Wan can’t see her face. “But there are so many Jedi who’ve lost limbs that they don’t have enough prosthetics. I’d need specialized ones for combat, too, and that’s not as high on the list as organ replacements.”

Obi-Wan pretends that he doesn’t notice Anakin casually walking over to the datapad by Siri’s bed and downloading all the information to a data-chip. _Don’t forget to look up the specifics for combat-use prosthetics_ , he thinks to his padawan. _They need to be a much higher quality, especially for Jedi, with all the force-tricks we do._

Anakin flashes a grin at him; Obi-Wan can practically see him designing prosthetic legs in his head, all the materials he’d use for the structure and the wiring, the types of servomotors that will be needed.

Obi-Wan himself won’t need a prosthetic, Master Don Eeta had told him that much; he’ll need a leg-brace for a long time, though, and it will certainly make ataru… interesting. It’s a good thing he’s switched mainly to soresu by this point.

Shmi continually refuses to help him break out, though she certainly turns a blind eye to Siri’s escape as soon as Anakin is done with the prosthetics. It takes him barely three (sleepless) days to design and build them, and then Siri is on her legs again.

Well, not quite _her_ legs, but oh well.

“I’m allowed to break out, now, right?” Siri asks Shmi.

“I don’t know when I became an authority on this,” Shmi says, her voice laced with amusement. “Ani, what do you think?”

“I think…” Anakin pauses. “That those legs need some real-life testing done!”

Siri grins at Anakin, then practically leaps out of the bed.

“Traitor padawan,” Obi-Wan grumbles as Siri does laps around the room then dashes out the door.

“I’ll help you break out when you won’t completely wreck what’s left of your leg,” Anakin says cheerfully. “You taught me to be responsible, didn’t you, master?” He ducks out the door before Obi-Wan can reply.

A smile curves into being on Obi-Wan’s face. He had, after all.

Still, he can feel very clearly that it really is _what’s left_ of his leg. The poison, Master Don Eeta has explained (very bluntly, once Obi-Wan had asked him to) damaged not only his nerves and muscles, but the veins as well, restricting the bloodflow to his leg when it needed it the most; on top of that, it resisted Force-healing on a molecular level.

It was very clearly a poison designed to wound rather than kill.

A week after he’s woken up, Master Don Eeta rolls his eyes and agrees to let Obi-Wan try taking a few steps.

Obi-Wan can usually manage a few steps a day, and it’s fifty-fifty whether it leaves him feeling better or worse – better because he’s improving, worse because he’s not improving _enough_.

He holds Shmi’s hands as he shakily stands by one of the full-wall windows in the infirmary and asks about the war.

“I’ve been trying to get them to let me inspect the troops,” she says, her voice carefully neutral. “To make sure they’re being treated right.”

Right, not well; _well_ would mean kindly and softly and still sent off to their deaths. Obi-Wan isn’t sure how she’ll be able to find _right_ in the legions of troopers born to die in their wars, but he hopes that she can.

“Siri’s off leading a legion, finally,” she continues. “And since you decided to let Anakin go shadow her while you’re laid up, he has apparently adopted an entire legion.”

Obi-Wan snorts. “Of course he has. He’ll be knighted soon, you know.”

“I know,” Shmi says, and sighs.

“Where’s Master Qui-Gon?” Obi-Wan asks casually. He’s been worrying – Qui-Gon’s name is the only one he hasn’t heard from Siri, Shmi, or any of the other people who have come through the infirmary.

Shmi… frowns. That’s not quite promising.

“I’m not sure,” she says. “I assumed he went off to Muunilinst, but… I haven’t heard. I’ll ask around.”

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan says, and tries not to worry.

 

 

Master Yoda comes to visit him next, and his steps are slow and sorrowful.

“What do you _mean_ nobody knows?!” Obi-Wan snaps when Master Yoda tells him the news. “ _Somebody_ must–”

“Don’t exert yourself!” Master Don Eeta calls.

Obi-Wan takes a deep breath, and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. The brace on his leg stands out sharp and grey against the pale clothes the healers have provided for him. “I need to find him.” He reaches for the bond that he and Qui-Gon share, and can only feel echoes and silence. Qui-Gon is too far away, or–

“Tried, I have,” Master Yoda says. “Think me a youngling, do you?” He sighs, long and tired. “Asked around, I have. Left the Temple, Qui-Gon did, nearly a day before Muunilinst. Alerted Master Dooku to this, he did; Tatooine, his destination was. No trace can we find of ship or Jedi.”

Obi-Wan closes his eyes. No trace, and none to be found. And on Tatooine…

“I still have to do _something_ ,” Obi-Wan says. “I’ve been sitting around useless for almost a month. I’m ready to go out in the field again.”

“Are you?” Master Yoda asks.

“I may not be fully combat-ready,” Obi-Wan says quietly. “But I can strategize, I can plan, I can _help_. Either I know my limits or I don’t – and I am at my limit for sitting in a bed while others risk their lives.”

Master Yoda sighs. “A legion, there is, waiting for you,” he says. “One more week, and then, the two hundred twelfth you will lead. Suffice, does that?”

“It does,” Obi-Wan says. Barely.

It seems he has one more week, then, one more empty week that he won’t spend sitting in a hospital bed all day.

He’s already read through strategy manuals, learned the general layout of the army, gone over and over again what the state of the war is. By the next morning, he’s already read through the basic briefing on the 212th. By that afternoon, he’s meditated on the profiles he’s read and realized that this legion will probably be a good fit for him.

His mind keeps circling back to Qui-Gon.

But he’s a Jedi. He knows how to calm himself, how to get rid of circular thoughts.

Taking walks around the Temple may not strictly be healer-approved, but he needs to practice walking with his leg-brace, doesn’t he?

He’s a Jedi. He knows when he’s making justifications to himself.

The first day he wanders around the temple, he stays in the areas where there are few Jedi – no Jedi, now, with the temple being so empty. The second day, he stays in those areas again, but this time he runs into Sarad.

Not literally, thankfully.

“Master Kenobi,” she says, and then freezes like she’s not quite sure what to do.

“Sarad,” he says. “Or – Beru? I’m not sure we ever were formally introduced.”

Her lips quirk up in a smile, and she tucks her helmet under one arm, reaching the other out. “Beru Whitesun.”

He shakes her armored hand. “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

“I know,” she says.

“Ah,” he says. “Of course.”

There’s no way she’s old enough to remember the Mandalorian Reformation, Obi-Wan thinks. But with her tone… she’s heard about it, at least, maybe even suffered its consequences directly.

“So,” she says, after about a minute of awkward silence. “I heard that Jango punched you. Sorry about that.”

“Oh, no,” Obi-Wan says. “It was completely justified.”

They lapse into awkward silence again, for a few very, very long moments. Then Obi-Wan sighs.

“Do you want to hear about the reformation?” He asks.

Beru winces. “Actually, I was worried about your leg. But that is definitely another bantha in the room, yes.”

Obi-Wan grins a bit, a touch of relief in his stomach. “My leg is a much less awkward topic, though. It’s been quite severely damaged; I have to walk with a brace, now.” She knows that already, most likely. The brace is… not exactly subtle.

“You’re going out to the war, right?” She asks, looking down at the brace with interest. “You could probably armor that, you know.”

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know if I could support the weight, but… that’s a very good suggestion, thank you.”

Beru’s silent for a moment, but this silence isn’t awkward; Obi-Wan can feel that there’s a question she’s fighting to ask, and eventually she does ask it.

“Why are the Jedi even fighting in the war?” She asks, clearly frustrated. “We know the clone army is linked to… to your enemies, somehow – why do you keep using it?”

Obi-Wan sighs. “Well, first of all, it’s the Senate that has control over the army,” he says. “We have… less and less influence in the Senate, each year. And we both know that there’s… let’s say some Senator who really doesn’t like us in the Senate, don’t we?”

Beru closes her eyes and nods. “That answers my questions about the army,” she says, and Obi-Wan can see her mourning all the clones that will die. “And the Jedi?”

“The Senate again, unfortunately,” Obi-Wan says. “If there is a conflict in a part of the galaxy, the people of that place are allowed to defend themselves. However, it’s considered mostly the local government’s problem, unless they call on help from the Senate, as Senator Amidala did during the Naboo Crisis.” He checks to see that Beru is following, which she is, then continues. “If the local government recognizes a conflict but does not take steps to end it, the Senate has the right to step in and force them to do so, and if they continue to leave their people at risk, the Senate will take away power. At least, that’s the theory. Anyways. The Jedi are considered peacekeepers for the galaxy.”

“Oh,” Beru says after a few shocked moments of silence. “So if the Jedi Order refuses to fight…”

“The Senate can request it of us, with that request ranging from asking us nicely to… well, let’s call it asking not so nicely,” Obi-Wan says. “If there were not… such an ardent critic of ours in the Senate, I would say that they would never ask us to do so, and even if they did, they would never take the steps to disband the Order. However, with someone so unfriendly in the Senate… we cannot risk it, and Master Yoda knows this, even if others do not.”

“And even if you don’t end up fighting, they’ll use the army anyways,” Beru mutters.

Ah. That’s the problem. “They will,” Obi-Wan says quietly. “You helped train them, yes?”

Beru nods. “They’re… I watched them grow up. They’re all my little brothers.”

“We’ll all try our best to keep them safe, and end this war so that nobody has to fight,” Obi-Wan says. “But…”

“No promises can be kept on a battlefield,” Beru says, and takes a deep breath. “You’re going to the two hundred twelfth, right?”

Obi-Wan nods, and Beru grins.

“Cody’s a good commander,” she says. “You two will work together well. And I heard that the five hundred first has Rex in charge, now – those two got on like a storm back on Kamino.”

“It’s a good thing I’ll likely be working with Anakin often, then,” Obi-Wan says. “I… would you tell me more about the army? What they’re all like, and how we can work together, and all that.”

“I’d be glad to,” Beru says.

 

 

That takes up most of an afternoon, and Beru promises to come visit him tomorrow, at least.

But tomorrow is a long way off when something wakes him in the middle of the night.

Obi-Wan’s breathing doesn’t change, but he floats his lightsaber over to where he can reach it easily, as soon as whoever’s snuck into the room makes the first move.

“I’m not looking for a fight, Kenobi,” Jango Fett says. “Just some answers.”

“Of course,” Obi-Wan says, his voice muffled by his sheets, and rolls over. “And you couldn’t come at a reasonable hour because…”

Fett just gives him a look.

Obi-Wan sighs. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“I want to know what the kriff happened during the Civil War,” Fett snaps.

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that,” Obi-Wan says, keeping his voice steady.

“What I want to know is why Kryze decided to tear our culture apart,” Fett says flatly. “The Jedi started it, with Galidraan–”

“The Jedi at Galidraan were manipulated,” Obi-Wan says, and wonders if Jango knows exactly who those Jedi were.

“I know that,” Fett says. “You think I don’t know that Dooku and his apprentice were twisted around just as badly as we were?”

Well, that answers that, Obi-Wan thinks.

Fett shakes his head. “But when Kryze called for _pacifism_ , she destroyed our culture, forced us to abandon our history and our ways… why the kriff should I accept that outcome?”

Obi-Wan stares up at the ceiling, not looking at Fett and his armor. “You promise you’ll actually listen to what I have to say? Not shoot me because it’s something you don’t like, or dismiss what I’m telling you as baseless lies?”

“I came here for _answers_ ,” Fett says again. “Are you going to give them to me?”

Obi-Wan sits up and flicks the lights on. The other people in his room have either recovered or died; the war has two types of injuries, the ones that can be fixed and the ones that can’t. That war did, too.

“You think that Satine was the only one who wanted peace?” Obi-Wan asks quietly. “The only one whose family was ripped apart? The only one who wanted a better world?”

“I trained under the Mand’alor,” Fett bites out. “We wanted a better world, too.”

“And you fought Death Watch, and because of the Jedi’s interference you lost,” Obi-Wan says. “We _know_ that. What option _should_ we have chosen? Not to mess up Galidraan so horribly, of course. But after that. Tell me honestly. What do you think Satine should have done when the clans rebelled?”

“Fight,” Fett says immediately. “There were other True Mandalorians left, not just me. They would have backed her.”

Like you did? Obi-Wan thinks. Fett hadn’t even been in the system for the Mandalorian Civil War, as far as he knows.

“It happens every time a new Duke or Duchess takes power,” Fett continues. “Harsher, with the clans who sided with Death Watch holding on to those beliefs – but we could have gathered the survivors, brought them down.”

“All the survivors were too injured or too traumatized,” Obi-Wan says. The faint smell of the infirmary doesn’t help; he remembers… too much of that smell. “You think we didn’t try? A whole year on the run, and we found _no one_ willing to fight.”

Fett snorts. “How hard were you looking?”

“Hard enough that hundreds of bounty hunters were able to follow our trail,” Obi-Wan says. “Hard enough that there were dozens of closets we hid in, hidden rooms, attics, basements. Places we hid while we listened to the people we were asking for help be tortured to death.”

Fett flinches at that.

“Screaming and crying, barely ten feet from us, to the last refusing to give up Satine’s location.” Obi-Wan glances over Fett’s armor, cool blues and greys. “None of us really had the stomach for more violence, after that.”

Fett is silent.

“You don’t really think about it,” Obi-Wan says. “How hard it is to keep quiet when someone is being tortured for your location, and you can hear it.” Obi-Wan can’t hear it during the daytime any more, but it’s taken years to get to that point. “Worse than that, you can smell it. But Satine was the Duchess of Mandalore, the last person who could bring the people together, and so she stayed hidden, and when we were safe and she held Sundari once again, she said _no more violence_.”

“It was that bad?” Fett’s voice is quiet, but loud in the silence of the infirmary, loud after the silence that had followed Obi-Wan’s speech.

Obi-Wan sighs. “Yes, it was that bad. You dealt with most of Death Watch after Galidraan, or so I’ve heard, but the clans were all still torn apart by their differences. To this day we don’t even know who hired half the bounty hunters.”

“I see,” Fett says. His face is blank, and Obi-Wan is too tired to try and get a feel for his emotions through the Force.

He watches Fett for a moment more, then lies down. “If you want to know more, then go ask Satine yourself. I have no clue who the Mand’alor is right now, but she as the Duchess leads the clans, at least. You’re sworn not to kill her, as a True Mandalorian. She’ll trust that oath. Now let me sleep.”

Fett leaves without another word.

Obi-Wan sleeps, but not without nightmares.

 

 

Obi-Wan spends the next day with Beru, cheerfully ignoring the memories her armor has for him and the dark circles under his eyes. He doesn’t really _mind_ that she told Fett he was up for talking about Mandalore, but he’s not exactly happy that revisiting it had to happen in the middle of the night.

But even being woken up in the middle of the night doesn’t exhaust him so much that he’s willing to stay in bed all day again, so he and Beru wander the temple, and finally find themselves in a mostly-empty training salle; there’s nobody training in there but a class of initiates.

“We should spar,” Obi-Wan decides.

Beru gives him an alarmed look. “Is that _safe_? With your leg?”

“Well, I’m going to have to get used to fighting on it sooner or later,” Obi-Wan points out. “Better in here than in an actual battle.”

“And what happens if I accidentally hurt your leg more, and you have to spend even longer being fussed over by healers?” Beru says. “Are you willing to risk _that_?”

Obi-Wan winces. Maybe not. Still, there has to be _something_ he can do in here. “Maybe I’ll just start out with katas,” he says.

“You do that,” Beru says. “I’m going to watch – lightsaber fighting looks fun.”

Obi-Wan drops into the stance for the first soresu kata and can already tell that he’ll have to make adjustments to compensate for his leg. “Have you used vibroblades at all?”

“A little,” Beru says as he practices the basic motions. “Both knife and sword work, but not recently. Is it similar?”

“Not at all, which is why I asked,” Obi-Wan says, and attempts a block that sends a satisfying burn down his shoulderblades. “With a lightsaber, you don’t have to compensate for weight but for momentum. The end result can sometimes look like vibrosword fighting, but there are major differences.”

He goes through the kata a few times, taking his time to make the changes he needs to make. The brace makes his leg both heavier and less mobile; he practices blocks and strikes until he has the new positioning firm in his mind, if not in his muscles.

By the end of it, Beru isn’t the only one watching: the intiate class is also staring at him with wide eyes.

“Aren’t you supposed to be paying attention to your instructor?” He asks, amused.

“Master Parse said to watch you, ‘cause you’re a master of soresu and it was a good lesson in adjusting katas for personal necessity,” one of the initiates says, wide-eyed.

Obi-Wan glances over at the instructor, a Mirialan knight who looks to be just barely out of padawanhood. “Well, if Master Parse wants me to give you all a lesson on soresu…?”

“I’d welcome it, Master Kenobi,” the knight says with a grin. “I was never very good with soresu.”

“All right,” he says. “Perhaps you should practice along with us, then, Master Parse?”

“Perhaps I should,” he says, his face darkening in a green flush. Force, this knight was so young he still wasn’t used to being called ‘master’ by younglings.

“The first thing you need to remember about soresu is that it is for defense,” he tells the initiates. “Openings that would, in other forms, be opportunities to strike will pass by you. That must not be seen as a failure; the point is not offense. The point is _defense_.”

As the lesson goes on, he has more of a chance to examine the initiates. They’re on the older side, for initiates – one or two even has a small yellow wristband or hair-tie that quietly tells others that these are Shmi’s strays.

They’re grimmer than he’s used to, for initiates. News of the war is hitting hard, even here. Maybe especially here.

Obi-Wan walks around them as they go through the basic kata he’s shown them, correcting a stance here or a grip there. He pauses by one togruta girl.

“You’re not very comfortable holding your lightsaber,” he points out.

She doesn’t blush, but then togruta skin is thicker than average – he can sense it in the Force. “It’s uncomfortable, holding it this way,” she says. Nervous, yes, but unafraid to speak her mind. “I… I use a reverse grip when I’m practicing, but the instructors don’t like it.”

“A reverse grip would mean quite a bit of adjustment to standard katas,” he says.

She nods, looking defeated.

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. “It will take a lot of work on your part,” he says. “That hardly means it’s unmanageable. You’d hardly be the only one who has non-standard katas, though, or didn’t you see me going through mine earlier?”

“Oh!” She says, and grins. “Thank you, Master Kenobi.”

“Get a master to check over your katas before you go through with them, to make sure you have the core elements right,” he says. “But it’s hardly an insurmountable stumbling block.”

Obi-Wan had forgotten how soothing it was, teaching initiates – well, teaching enthusiastic initiates. Bored initiates was a whole other matter.

The class ends eventually, and the initiates leave, Knight Parse shepherding them off to their next lesson.

“You’re good with children,” Beru says.

Obi-Wan blinks. He’d almost forgotten she was there. “Well, I had an… unconventional apprenticeship. I remember how I wanted adults to act around me. That… helps.”

Beru nods. “Are you allowed out of the temple?”

It seems that Beru’s purpose in life is to blindside Obi-Wan. “I am if we don’t run it by the healers first,” he says. “Why?”

“There are some kids I’d like you to meet,” she says.

 

 

There are five children in the tatooinian community that’s fled from Kamino. Of them, Obi-Wan learns, Sala is both the eldest at thirteen and the only one to have lived on Tatooine; the other four were born on Kamino.

Sen is nine, the first child to be born on Kamino, and has a five-year-old sibling called Neea; Harral is seven, the same age as Daesha, the only twi’lek of the group.

Obi-Wan stares down at them.

They stare up at him.

“So,” he says. “I’m supposed to entertain you while your parents pack.”

The children continue staring.

Obi-Wan sighs. “I’ve never really dealt with children who weren’t Jedi before.” Except for Anakin, but Shmi was there for most of that.

“We’ve never met a Jedi before,” Sala points out. “What’s being a Jedi like?”

“Well,” Obi-Wan says. “We need to train a lot – both our bodies and our minds. We can’t defend others without a well-trained body, and we can’t bring peace without a well-trained mind.”

“How d’you train a _mind_?” Harral asks, clearly skeptical. The child wears their hair down in two long braids, presumably mimicking their twi’lek agemate; currently, they’re chewing on one of them, making their question hard to hear.

Obi-Wan gently tugs the hair out of the child’s mouth. “We start training our minds with meditation. It helps calm the mind, so that we can see a situation more clearly. Can you think of anything rationally when you’re so angry you can barely see?”

All the children shake their heads.

“So meditation helps us move past our anger, or any other distracting emotion, to see something as it is,” he says. “We breathe deeply and focus. That’s part of how we train our minds.”

“I do something like that sometimes,” Sala pipes up. “I’m going to be a dancer when I grow up, so I watch holos and look up tutorials and they all talk about the importance of breathing.”

“Yes, breath is very important when you’re training your body, as well,” Obi-Wan says, nodding to the girl. “When you breathe deeply, it puts more oxygen – or another gas, depending on your species – in your bloodstream, so you have more energy and can focus.”

There’s a small motion at his side; Neea has walked over, sat down by his side, and has started examining his lightsaber.

“Be careful with that, young one,” he says. “Its blade is very dangerous.”

Neea looks up at him with big, solemn eyes, nods twice, then goes back to poking at it.

All right, then. Obi-Wan makes sure to hold the lightsaber’s switch in the _off_ position with a touch of the Force, then turns back to the other children.

He can tell that it’s been hard on them, fleeing from cold Kamino to an unfamiliar ship, from there to a space station, from there to probably a dozen other stops that Boba hasn’t seen fit to tell them about, to finally impersonal Coruscant, staying in rooms that Jango Fett has scrambled to find.

Obi-Wan makes a mental note to try and reimburse him. For… oh, rehabilitation assistance, or preservation of innocents, or some other reasonable excuse.

The children quickly rope him into playing a game involving cards and tokens that Obi-Wan only half-grasps the rules of, but is entertaining nonetheless; this is certainly much better than sitting in a bed all day.

 

 

The next day, Shmi departs with a small contingent of clones, to go inspect the various legions and their Jedi generals.

The main result of this is that the tatooinians need someone to watch the children, again.

Obi-Wan definitely doesn’t mind, given that he still has a few days before he’s allowed to depart. He’d attempted to look up the game that the children had played, and had come to the conclusion that either it was some sort of mish-mash combination of dejarik, sabacc, and two separate children’s games, or that the children were making up the rules as they went along.

He’s honestly not sure which of the two it is.

But the children are settling down and the adults are out of the rooms, arranging boxes on the transport, when Obi-Wan gets a prickling feeling on the back of his neck.

He carefully detaches Neea from his lightsaber and takes a moment to breathe and listen to the Force.

Something is _definitely_ wrong.

Sala is watching him when he focuses his attention back on the room. There’s a tiny frown on her face. Harral is watching him, too, their braid in their mouth and their hand clutching Daesha’s.

“Is something wrong?” Sen asks, ever blunt as a nine year old inevitably is. “You look like something’s wrong.”

He looks over them, these children of refugees and freed slaves.

“Yes,” he says. “Something is wrong. I’m not sure what.”

None of them panic, though Sen picks Neea up and holds her tight. These children know how to handle themselves in a crisis; that alone makes Obi-Wan sorrow for their childhoods, but he can’t bring himself to wish they had panicked more.

“What should we do?” Sala asks sharply, the little leader of the group.

“Try and be quiet,” Obi-Wan says. “Maybe try meditation, what I talked about yesterday. I’m going to try and sense what’s happening. If there’s danger, do you know where to hide?”

Sala nods, and the younger children copy her.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes and breathes.

Even with the children quiet, even with the attention he’s paying to the Force, he almost misses the footstep.

He pivots to a kneel, his lightsaber going up to catch–

Another lightsaber, glowing bright red.

The wielder breaks away from the block, and Obi-Wan gets a good look at them. Behind him, he can hear the children scrambling away, presumably to hiding places.

The assassin is humanoid, and female, as far as Obi-Wan can tell, grey skin and bald head dotted with darker grey tattoos.

“Jedi,” she hisses.

“I would return the remark, if I knew who and what you were,” he says. She’s dark, he can tell that from her Force presence and her lightsabers; but beyond that… is she _another_ apprentice? What is she doing _here?_

“Your fall will be my rise,” she says, and lunges again.

Obi-Wan stands, ignoring the twinging of his leg, and blocks. “That’s hardly an answer,” he chides, keeping his focus on her. “We wouldn’t want to be rude, now, would we?”

“And yet here you are, in my way,” she returns. “Who’s the rude one now, Jedi?”

“The one attacking a room full of helpless children, of course,” he says – and that’s it. The children. She’s after the children, as hostages for Beru and the Fetts. Obi-Wan tightens his grip on his lightsaber. He can’t let her get to them; he’ll just have to make sure all her attention is on him. “Who could have taught you such bad manners?”

She actually _snarls_ at him. So, whoever raised her is a soft spot, he notes. But then her gaze narrows. “Had I known you considered yourself a helpless child, I would have acted differently, of _course_ ,” she snaps back, and oh, that was a good retort. Point to her.

“You still haven’t answered my question, you know,” he says, rather than try and continue the thread of insults. A carefully-timed sweep of his lightsaber and she’s disarmed; he levels the blade at her throat. “Who are you?” He asks again.

Her lips curve up in a smile. “Asajj Ventress,” she says. “Not that you’ll remember it long; you’ll be dead soon enough.”

Another lightsaber slips out of her sleeve and ignites, knocking Obi-Wan’s lightsaber away from her throat; with her other hand, she summons back her first saber and twists them together to make a staff.

It’s a flash of premonition – post-monition – he’s not even sure. For a split second, he sees the zabrak he’d fought on Naboo a decade ago.

Ventress looks nothing like Maul, all grey where he was black and red. But she burns with fury and a red lightstaff, and that’s all the similarities that Obi-Wan needs to feel that tiny flash of fear, of memory. That tiny flash of _I can’t let my master die_ –

But Qui-Gon may be dead already.

He dodges and makes a quip, something about length, but he’s distracted and Ventress knows it, pressing her advantage.

Her style is nothing like Maul’s, niman mixed with makashi to devastating effect. The only reason Obi-Wan can keep up is because he’s trained with Shmi and Master Dooku; but even then, it’s close.

Obi-Wan tries to center himself, calm himself, but this is too close a reminder. He needs to focus on the moment – but that’s what Qui-Gon always said.

He wants to attack, to end this assassin’s threat, to save the children, even though that won’t bring him any closer to saving Qui-Gon.

There’s an opening, as she snarls something at him and twists her lightstaff, and Obi-Wan–

Doesn’t attack.

His words two days ago are still true. He lets the opening pass. He doesn’t compromise his defense.

“What’s distracting you, Jedi?” Ventress hisses. “I’d almost think that you weren’t paying attention to me.”

“I’m paying you as much attention as you deserve,” Obi-Wan says.

Ventress grins. “Are you?” She asks, and thrusts a hand out. The shelving unit behind Obi-Wan wobbles and leans, threatening to topple over on top of him.

It would have been easy to leap out of the way if he’d remembered the extra weight on his damaged leg.

As it is, he doesn’t get hit by the shelving unit; but he does land with a thud on the thankfully-carpeted floor. He doesn’t let go of his lightsaber, but it’s a near thing – and now Ventress is above him, striking down. He gets his lightsaber up to block in time, but he can’t do any more than that – can’t get out of the way, can’t attack.

The door slams open.

Beru stands there, in her full beskar’gam, pistols raised.

Ventress doesn’t even try to engage her; she disengages her lightsabers, clipping the hilts to her belt, and leaps out one of the windows, vanishing into Coruscant’s morning traffic.

Obi-Wan lies there for a moment, as Beru stands silently in the doorway.

“Is everyone all right?” She asks after a moment.

“We’re fine!” Sala calls, and crawls out from behind a bookshelf, the other children following her. “She was only paying attention to Mister Kenobi.”

Neea squirms out from Sen’s arms, dropping to the floor and darting over to Obi-Wan.

“She was scary,” the five-year-old whispers to him. “You fought her!”

“I did, little one,” Obi-Wan says.

Beru glances around the room, shaking her head at the lightsaber-scarred walls and furniture. “Who was she?”

“She called herself Asajj Ventress,” Obi-Wan says. “I… I don’t think she’s another Sith apprentice. Trained by the apprentice, maybe.”

Beru’s face grows grim. “And sent after the hostages they don’t have in their clutches any more.”

“It’s all right,” Harral pipes up.

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. “Is it, now?”

Harral nods, and Daesha nods along with them. “Even though she was scary, like the dragons that Mama always talks about, you beat her!”

Obi-Wan and Beru exchange a glance. It always seems that simple, doesn’t it?

Both of them know that it’s not.

 

 

_“My mistress, I failed. A Jedi guarded the children; I was able to take none of them.”_

_“A Jedi guard? Who?”_

_“From what I’ve learned since, he was Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.”_

_“… Ah, Asajj. A failure, yes, but one out of your control. Master Kenobi is a fierce warrior and a skilled Jedi.”_

_“I_ will _win the next time I face him, my mistress.”_

_“Of that I have no doubt, my acolyte. But tell me. What damage appeared to be done to his leg? I would very much like to know the results of my work…”_

 

 

Master Don Eeta glares down at Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan continues blithely sitting on his bed.

“When I allowed you to go wandering about the temple,” the healer says icily, “And make no mistake, I’ve known about every single one of your excursions. I didn’t stop you because I, the fool that I am, thought that you would be _reasonable_. That you would stay _safe_. That you would _not_ get into any life-or-death lightsaber fights before you’d completed your full recovery.”

“It’s not like I had much of a choice,” Obi-Wan points out. “ _She_ attacked _me_.”

Master Don Eeta actually _growls_. “If I had my way, I’d confine you here for another week! Unfortunately,” he says, and takes a deep breath. “ _Unfortunately_ , Master Yoda insists that your presence is needed on the front lines. I’ve already forwarded your medical report to your new CMO. He, hopefully, will be able to keep you from injuring your leg worse, though I despair of anyone trying to get you to stay out of trouble, Master Kenobi.”

“I will do my best to stay safe,” Obi-Wan says.

“I’m _sure_ you will,” Master Don Eeta says, and sighs. “Fine. I wash my hands of you, Master Kenobi. _Try_ not to be back in here too soon, though we will need to schedule periodic checkups–”

Obi-Wan is already out the door.

It’s barely the work of ten minutes to pack what he needs from his rooms; from there, he makes his way out of the temple, intending to go towards the shipyards where he’ll meet the 212th.

He’s waylaid, however, at the temple’s entrance. Two clone troopers stand there, one bearing the insignia of a commander, and the other of a CMO.

“Sir!” They say together as he approaches, and salute.

“At ease,” he says, and they relax. “You’re Commander Cody, yes?”

“Yes, sir,” Commander Cody says. “CC-2224. This is CT-1880, Ulur, our Chief Medical Officer. According to the file that your healer sent over, ah…” Commander Cody glances over at Ulur.

“Given that your healer said that not only should you still be off that leg for a month or two and you apparently have a tendency for getting into unexpectedly combative situations, you’re going to have a medic stationed with you at all times,” Ulur says.

Obi-Wan sighs. “Of course,” he says. “ _All_ times?”

“All times,” Ulur says, completely unapologetic.

“Very well,” Obi-Wan says. It’ll hardly be his fault if the medics can’t keep up when he’s running around battlefields.

Commander Cody and Ulur exchange a glance, one that Obi-Wan can’t quite read.

“Let’s get to the ship,” Commander Cody says. “We’re due to depart in five hours, and you may want to get settled and introduce yourself to the men.”

It’s not as if Obi-Wan expects everything to go perfectly smoothly, to meet his troops and learn how to work with them without any problems. But it does go… surprisingly smoothly. He’s read about command and structure, he’s studied up on military procedure, and everything he knows says that even with all his studying things shouldn’t click without any bumps or misunderstandings.

But he’s been in wars before.

On Melida/Daan all those years ago, on Mandalore – he knows how to read the soldiers’ tone, how to see the patterns of how they work and live together. And he feels himself fitting in, as he observes how the ranking system works, how he’s expected to act. He counts it as an accomplishment the first time Cody snorts at a dry remark he makes.

Obi-Wan meets his troops, and they all shine so brightly – Cody and Ulur and Mumble and Lighter and Frax and a thousand others, and he remembers that every single one of these clones, these men aren’t here willingly.

The worst thing – one of the worst things – is how easy it is to forget, how easy it is to see willing soldiers, to think _they want to be here_ , to forget that they’ve been raised from birth with no options other than this.

Obi-Wan _can’t_ let himself forget that, not with the threat of the Sith, the threat of the spy, with everything else hanging over his head.

Somehow or other, they’re going to have to fix all this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About the Mandalorian Civil War/Reformation/I'm not even sure at this point in time: I'm sort of mashing together two events, the war where the True Mandalorians fought Death Watch, and the war where Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Satine were running from bounty hunters for a year. I figure that War 1 probably led in part to War 2, and that both these wars together were so awful that an entire warrior culture decided to adopt pacifism. I've got... a lot of opinions about Mandalore, and Satine, and the way they're generally treated in fandom, but I'm going to stop talking about that now :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Siri and Anakin take to the battlefield. Working title: "Siri and the horrible, terrible no-good very bad day."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's not _required_ to have seen Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2003) for this, but I'm just saying, it's only like 2 hours long and it's all on youtube.
> 
> **Warnings** for minor character death.

Siri has known from the moment that Anakin Skywalker first announced his intentions to design a speeder, then said that he _probably_ wouldn’t build it, that Skywalker was going to be at the very least an _interesting_ mechanic.

Testing out her prosthetics by doing laps around the ship’s sparring rooms, she mentally modifies that to _excellent_. She may never have her own legs again, but these legs that Skywalker’s made for her are honestly nearly as good. They may not have great sensory feedback, but she can barely even feel the lag in response time; they’re a little heavier than she’s used to, but that just means her kicks will hurt more.

And all of that isn’t even mentioning the secret compartment he managed to squeeze in in what had been her calf.

The healers had mostly just been relieved that she’d mysteriously acquired a pair of prosthetics and gotten out of the ward, so now Siri needs to spend her time getting back into shape, because they arrive on Kalidasa in another day.

It’s strange to think of it – her, a general? Leading an army? But here she is, on a ship full of clone troopers under her command.

Well, her and Anakin’s. With Obi-Wan laid up in the infirmary, it’s now apparently Siri’s job to follow his padawan around, making sure he doesn't kill himself with some inadvisable stunt.

Like adopting an entire legion.

It’s not as if Siri _minds_ her padawan-adoptee – padawan-nephew? Whatever Anakin is to her – running around by himself being a general without technically having the rank. But it _does_ mean that they’re going to have to knight him soon, which means that Obi-Wan needs to get the healers to let him out soon.

“Master Tachi!”

“Padawan Skywalker,” Siri says, and grins. “These prosthetics are working out very nicely.”

Anakin grins back at her. “Would you like to test them some more?”

Siri’s eyes narrow. “You wouldn’t be challenging me, an accomplished Jedi Knight, to a spar, would you, padawan?”

Anakin’s grin only widens. “I might be.”

“Well, then.” Siri pretends to consider it. “I’ll just have to show you all the places where Kenobi’s training is lacking.”

“Hey!” Anakin looks offended for a brief moment, then relaxes. “It’ll be hard for you – it’s not lacking at all!”

Siri sighs. “You need to work on your comebacks, Anakin.”

“How’s this for a comeback?” Anakin asks, drawing his lightsaber and attacking.

“Pretty good, actually,” Siri says, blocking with ease, her own blue lightsaber a few shades darker than Anakin’s. “But not good enough.” Her prosthetic leg sweeps him off his feet, though what remains of her thigh muscles have started to ache after her run.

He rolls out of the way before she can tag him with her saber, then comes to his feet and lunges forwards again.

“You’re impulsive,” she says, blocking and spinning, relying on a combination of djem so and niman – her ataru is going to need far more work to get up to speed with her new legs, and she’s never been particularly good at soresu. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing – good reflexes count for a lot in a fight.”

“But I need to focus on my overall strategy,” Anakin says. “I know, I know.” He manages a flip over Siri’s head that puts him at her back, but she doesn’t even have to turn; spinning her saber so that it’s guarding her back, she gathers momentum and again sweeps Anakin’s legs out from under him. She completes the turn, lightsaber swinging to a rest just above Anakin’s chest.

“You’re really enjoying having heavier legs, aren’t you,” he says flatly.

Siri grins. “Everyone expects you to be lighter and weaker if you’re short,” she says. “It’s not my fault I’m a powerhouse.”

Anakin sighs. “Just try not to break them, okay?”

“Are they breakable?” Siri wonders. “I’ve been kicking things a lot over the past week, and they haven’t broken yet.”

Anakin rolls to his feet with a groan. “With the way you go after things, they’re going to break eventually. There’s only so much blunt-force trauma anything can take.” he pauses. “I think I can work retractable spikes into the next pair, if you want.”

Siri grins. “In that case, I’ll just have to continue stress-testing them.”

“General Tachi!”

Siri turns, her back straightening. “What is it, trooper?” It’s hard to fall into the patterns the clones have made for themselves, but she’s working on it.

The trooper stops and salutes her and Anakin. From the dark orange paint on his armor, this trooper is one of hers, from the 409th; she doesn’t know all of the thousands of names, yet, but she’s working on it. “CT-8652, sir. Jatz. There’s a call for you and for Commander Skywalker.”

Siri floats over two cloths, one for her and one for Anakin to wipe the sweat off their faces. “Lead the way,” she says.

Jatz has a pattern of lines and circles around his helmet; after a moment, Siri realizes that it’s musical notes. As he leads them up from the training rooms to the command deck, Siri tries and fails to puzzle out what the tune is.

On the deck, however, there’s no time for levity. “Master Barrek is running into trouble on Hypori,” Master Ki-Adi-Mundi says as Siri and Anakin come into view. A group of troopers are already gathered around the console; Commander Atin, Majors Blue and Fuse, and Captains Shev and 1142. “We’re sending reinforcements, but you two are much closer. The situation on Kalidasa is tense, yes, but does not appear to be deteriorating. Have the 501st continue there – they’ll do fine without you in this situation, Padawan Skywalker, and you’re needed more on Hypori. Something – we’re not sure what – has been killing all the clones and Jedi on Hypori. Master Barrek and his padawan are holding their position, but only defensively. They won’t be able to last much longer.”

“We’ll reset our course immediately,” Siri says.

“We are sending more reinforcements, myself included,” Master Mundi says. “But we won’t arrive for three days. Do what you can. May the Force be with you.”

Siri takes a moment to breathe after Master Mundi disconnects. “All right,” she says, turning to Commander Atin and the others. “Reset our course for Hypori, and tell everyone to prepare for battle.”

“Yes sir,” Commander Atin says. “I’ll pass the message along to the 501st?”

“I’ll tell Rex,” Anakin says. “Set up the call. Next time, I’m flying with my troops,” he tells Siri.

Siri snorts. “Definitely. How will they cope without you? But seriously, do. You don’t have to stick to me like melioorun sap. My legs aren’t going to fall off again.”

“They _might_ have,” Anakin points out. “We’ve been in two battles so far, but it’s only been a week and a half, you never know–” the call to Captain – Commander? – Rex connects, and he switches his attention away from Siri to start briefing his… clone who was in charge.

“Okay,” Siri says quietly once they’re out of the holocall’s range. “Is Rex a captain or a commander? What’s up with that?”

“Technically he’s a major,” Commander Atin says. “Since he’s a CT, not a CC, he can’t go higher than major. But since the 501st got wrecked, all the officers were dying, he just picked up the mantle and everyone else rolled with it. He’s good at it, too, which is why nobody’s made a fuss – but he was a captain in charge of the entire legion before he got officially promoted to major, so everyone calls him captain and knows he’s really the commander.”

Siri sighs. “Of course. It couldn’t be something simple.”

“There’ll be plenty of simple where we’re going, General,” Major Blue says. “You see a droid, you kill it. Simple.”

“What a relief,” Siri says drily. “And Force knows we won’t find any complications on a battlefield. That would just be silly.”

“Here’s hoping we won’t, at least,” Captain ‘42 says.

Siri very much agrees.

 

 

“You jinxed it,” Major Blue growls.

“I did _not_ jinx it,” Captain ’42 protests, then peeks out from behind cover. Then gets back under cover before he can be shot to bits. “I didn’t!”

Siri closes her eyes. She can feel Master Barrek and Padawan Gi out where the remainder of the 73rd has set up a secured area; the only problem is, there’s an army of droids between the 73rd’s secured area and the 409th’s reinforcements.

“Commander Atin, report,” she says. They’re spread apart, trying to target two different areas of the veritable sea of droids; the basic plan was to get them to focus on the groups attacking them and draw apart, clearing a path down the middle for Master Barrek and his troops to get out.

That hadn’t worked.

“We’re taking heavy fire,” Commander Atin says, his voice crackling through the comm. “This isn’t working. I’d suggest we regroup and try a full-on frontal assault.”

Siri grimaces. That isn’t going to go well, with their numbers. They’re going to have to wait for backup. “Rendezvous at my location. We’re going to get this area fortified and wait for General Mundi’s backup to arrive.”

“Yes sir,” Commander Atin says.

A squad of troopers – what’s left of them – joins Siri and the others behind the cover they’ve found – a solid line of downed tanks and ships. Siri recognizes Jatz among them.

“They just keep coming,” one of the other troopers says, panting. “We got in really close – they’re jamming the 73rd’s comms.”

Major Blue swears.

“I _didn’t_ jinx it,” Captain ’42 insists again. “That’s not even a _thing_ –”

“Beeper said that he heard lightsabers,” Jatz cuts in.

Siri frowns. “Lightsabers?”

“I’m good at hearing things,” one of the clones says – this must be Beeper. “Even when there’s all these blasters going off. I’m telling you, I _heard_ them.”

“It could me Master Barrek, trying to get through to us,” Siri says. “Or…” She swallows, her throat suddenly dry.

They’ve all heard of Darth Vulsion by now, Shmi’s duel with her and, of course, her wounding Obi-Wan.

Siri tells herself that she would sense the darkness if there were a Sith on the battlefield, and makes herself calm down. “All right. This isn’t going as planned–”

“There’s no way I _could have_ jinxed it–”

“–But we’ll just have to pull through,” she continues, and switches on her comm for the next part, talking to all her troops. “As soon as Commander Atin and the rest of the troops get here, we’ll fortify this area more. As many fortifications as we can set up. We hold this position.”

“Yes, sir!” All the clones say.

Something catches her eye; a fallen walker, about to be swarmed by droids, a group of clones huddling behind it.

“There,” she points it out. “Major Blue, you stay here, hold our position. Um… this squad–”

“Tempo squad,” Jatz says.

“Tempo squad,” Siri repeats. “You’re with me.”

“Captain Jinx, you go with them,” Major Blue says, reloading his gun.

The captain looks confused for a second, the inordinately pleased at his new name. “Yes, sir!”

“Let’s _go!_ ” Siri says, and they run out from behind cover.

Siri takes point, leading the attack, focusing the droids’ blaster-fire on her. She’s a student of many forms, master of none, but she’s more than competent at djem so, which is nearly unparalleled on a massive battlefield like this. Offense and defense, deflecting blaster bolts back at the droids firing them.

“We’ve got them!” Captain ’42 – Captain Jinx – calls to her. Siri glances around, then nods and starts to cover their retreat.

She can’t deflect blasts that aren’t aimed at her.

Jatz goes down to a leg-shot that’s followed up by three head-shots. Siri blinks the tears from her eyes – no space for those on a battlefield. She’d only known him a few hours. He’d fought for her, for their legion. He’d died for them, too.

Once they’re back under cover, Siri’s breath doesn’t ease, because it never tightened up, because she never cried. But it is a relief to know that Jatz was the only fatality of their little rescue operation; one of the clones she doesn’t know – one of the ones her legion had been restocked with after their first two battles, from the shine of his armor – took a shot to the arm, but he’s alive and fervently insisting that he can still fight.

One clone is dead, and they’ve saved six more. Siri doesn’t think she can ever grow used to making the choices she has to make in war. She’s afraid that she will anyways.

Anakin is close by, Siri realizes; he’s been with Commander Atin, a Jedi to each point of attack. The rest of her men are close.

“Stay here,” she orders Major Blue. “All of you. I’m going to go help the others get to our position.”

Major Blue doesn’t look happy, but he is under her command. “Yes, sir,” he says.

Siri can hear them by now – well, everything sounds like a battle; she can hear the distinctive noise of blaster bolts deflecting off a lightsaber. Is that what Beeper had heard, when Tempo squad had gotten close to the 73rd’s fortifications?

Siri whirls out from behind cover, deflecting blasts with a spin of her blade. The droids weren’t advancing upon the fortifications, though they were firing.

Commander Atin’s troops weren’t so lucky. They were stuck in melee with the droids, a buzzing mix of white, tan, and black.

Siri joins them.

It is simple, in its way, she admits; slicing through droids and deflecting blaster bolts, nothing to worry about but her life and the lives of her comrades. Troopers die, and droids die, and at the end of the day some are still alive, and those are the ones who win.

Simple.

Kicking droids with prosthetic legs is very fun, Siri had learned in her first two battles; she learns it again here.

“You look like you’re having fun!” Anakin calls, half out-of-breath.

“What can I say, you looked like you needed some help!” Siri calls back. “Get to the fortified position, everybody!”

“ _Yes sir!_ ” Echoes back from the battle around her. Slowly but surely, they make their way behind the meager fortifications Siri’s managed to hold.

“All right,” she says, once the battle has paused. “Set up a place for the wounded, start adding to the fortifications. Padawan Skywalker and I are going to go extend their reach.”

Anakin frowns as troopers hurry to and fro. “How?”

Siri rolls her eyes. “There are downed tanks and ships all over the battlefield. _I_ may not be able to lift an entire ship by myself, but you’re a powerhouse, we can make it work.”

“I can’t lift an entire _ship_ ,” Anakin protests.

Siri tilts her head to the side. Teenagers require a delicate hand of persuasion, she thinks.

“I bet you can,” she says.

“Yeah, well, _I_ bet I _can’t_ ,” Anakin says.

“Prove it,” says Siri.

Anakin glares down at her.

“I dare you,” she says.

“ _Fine_ ,” Anakin says, and stalks over to the edge of the fortifications line.

Siri ambles on after him.

“Careful,” she warns the troopers crouching at the edge, waiting to take pot-shots at droids. “We might be extending these a bit.”

There’s a smoking wreck of a transport ship a little ways away; it’s probably the one Anakin is focusing on, based by the glare he’s trying to burn into its sides.

It wobbles a bit. Its remaining wing tilts up. Siri projects calm and certainty; two things that Anakin lacks, but two things that he needs.

Anakin exhales mightily, and the ship relaxes back into the ground with a groan. “I can’t,” he says, his face pale.

“Sit with me,” she says, and sits in the dirt.

Anakin looks at her tiredly, but sits.

The clones around them are watching them; they’re still not used to Jedi, and what Jedi can do.

“We’re Jedi,” she says. “We can’t do everything. We can’t save everyone.” Her heart aches for Jatz, for all the troopers lost here today. “We all need to know our limits. Is this your limit?”

Anakin stares at her for a long moment, then closes his eyes. “No.”

“Breathe with me,” Siri orders. “This is just another basic exercise. Inhale; find the object. Exhale. Grasp it. Inhale. Find your center. The Force is your lever; the Force is your place to stand. Now lift the ship.”

Siri can’t see it, with her eyes closed, but she can feel the Force reaching out from Anakin, raising the ship a few feet into the air.

“Perfect,” she says, and opens her eyes.

The troopers are staring at them, silent and respectful.

“I can’t move it,” Anakin says distantly. “Not without crushing it.”

“Just hold it up,” she reassures him. “I’ll do the rest.”

It’s easy, moving things in zero gravity; an object lifted with the Force isn’t _quite_ like that, but without the friction of the ground it’s easy enough for Siri to nudge it over into position.

She and Anakin release it simultaneously, sending a dust cloud up into the air and lengthening their fortifications by yards.

“Perfect,” Siri says again. “I told you you could do it.”

Anakin opens his eyes and glares at her. “You did,” he admits. “… another?”

“Another,” she agrees, and they get to work.

 

 

Just half her troops are on the ground, of course. There’s just as much of a battle in the space above Hypori as there is on the ground.

“We’re not getting any word from Major Fuse,” Commander Atin says tiredly. “Hopefully that means they’re jamming us.”

If they aren’t being jammed, it means there’s nobody left to contact.

“They probably are jamming us,” Siri says. “We couldn’t call Master Barrek before; now we can’t call the rest of the 409th. They can hold their own.” Force, she wishes that they’d brought the 501st with them. But they’d expected to have the full 73rd backing them, not its remains stuck behind enemy lines.

They just had to make do with the hand they were dealt.

“You should sleep, General,” Captain Jinx says quietly.

Siri shakes her head. “Anakin did most of the heavy lifting, with the fortifications,” she says. She had found him, half an hour after they’d finished, gently snoring against the base of a tank. “I’m fine.”

“It’s not the using-the-force,” Captain Jinx says. “It’s almost night.”

Siri blinks and looks up at the distinctly darkening sky. From what she can remember, Hypori has a longer spin than standard, too.

“If I haven’t noticed that, maybe it _is_ time for me to get some rest,” she says, and now that she thinks about it she does realize how tired she is. “This is the first time we’ve had a battle stretch on this long. Is there a protocol for taking shifts, or something like that?”

“Yes, sir,” Commander Atin says. “With the number we need guarding the fortifications, it’s going to be four two-hour shifts. There’s a set alarm if the troopers on watch see an attack coming, and an automatic one that goes off if all watching troopers suddenly lose consciousness.”

“All right,” Siri says, and yawns. “Put me on the fourth watch, please.”

“You’re the _General_ ,” Commander Atin protests. “You need to sleep the whole night.”

“I’m a Jedi,” Siri says. “I can get by on less sleep. Put me on the fourth watch, Commander.”

Commander Atin sighs. “Yes, sir.”

“Let padawan Skywalker sleep, though.”

“Of _course_ , sir.” Commander Atin sounds distinctly annoyed.

“We’ve got some basic bedrolls in the ships that landed,” Captain Jinx tells her. “And we salvaged some more from the ships in the fortifications. Do you–”

“I am a Jedi, the Force is my comfort,” Siri says, and curls up against the non-serrated parts of a destroyed walker. Really, though, she’s too tired to go find anything else; the last thing she hears before she drifts off is Commander Atin’s sigh, and a grumble about something that sounds suspiciously like _damn Jedi generals not taking care of themselves_.

Siri has never been one for prophetic dreams, or precognition in general; sure, she gets impulses from the Force, but no visions, no premonitions, usually no dreams.

Usually.

She hears footsteps, following her, everywhere and nowhere and _following_ her. Echoing. _Grinding_ –

Siri stands in a field of flowers, thousands of colors of petals opening to the sun. She looks behind her, and there is something moving forward, something eating the flowers and trampling them into the dirt. She looks ahead, and the flowers glow as brightly as the stars.

She kneels down in the dirt and cradles a dark blue blossom in her hand, carefully not picking it. Grass has sprung up all around it, shielding it from whatever is trying to eat the flowers, for now.

What can Siri do?

She wakes up to a hand shaking her shoulder.

“General,” Major Blue says quietly. “It’s time for your watch.”

Siri yawns and sits up. “Thank you,” she says, keeping her voice quiet as well.

Hypori’s sun hasn’t risen yet, and the stars are twinkling brightly. Siri lets Major Blue show her where to stand for her watch, staring out at the masses of just-as-twinkling and just-as-bright lights that make up the eyes of battle droids.

“It’s been quiet,” Major Blue says. “Not even much of a chance to make pot-shots any more.”

“What are they waiting for?” Siri asks quietly.

Even in the darkness, she can see Major Blue’s face tighten. “That’s the question,” he says.

Guard duty is calming – Siri only has to do something if the situation changes. She sinks into a light meditation, one of the kinds that lets her focus on the world around her rather than sinking into herself.

Something is wrong, and she can feel it; she can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from, though, or even if it’s about them. She could be picking up troubles from Master Barrek’s camp, assuming they haven’t been demolished overnight; she could be picking up that the space battle is going poorly.

The feeling only grows as the night lightens to half-light, then to true morning. Nothing happens – the droids don’t made an attack at all during the night, even though the dark is no disadvantage for them.

They’re waiting for something.

 

 

Siri doesn’t notice it when Anakin stretches and yawns, or when he sits up; she finds him like that already, as she paces back and forth and turns to see him staring out into the horizon.

“It’s a beautiful planet,” she comments idly, attracting his attention.

He shrugs.

It is a beautiful planet – the sky is somewhere between blue and purple, offset against the yellow rocks of the are they’re in. But mostly Siri just wants to talk. Anakin feels… lost, in the Force. Siri’s never been good at sensing emotions through the Force, but she can tell _this_ , especially with how loud he’s projecting.

She’s never been very sutble, either. “What are you regretting right now?” she asks.

“Nothing,” he replies, but his heart’s not in it.

Siri paces back and forth some more, her eyes scanning the horizon. “Come on, Skywalker. I can tell something’s wrong. Spill, or it’ll come to haunt you later.”

“You know from experience?” Anakin snaps back.

“I do,” Siri says.

“Sure,” Anakin says.

Siri snorts. “You don’t believe me. Come on, you think you’re the only one who’s lived life? We’ve all struggled with the Code. We’ve all struggled with doing the right thing.”

Anakin looks down. “On Tatooine,” he says, slowly, as if he’s forcing the words out. “The slavers attacked the settlement we were staying in – it was a hub, the center of the desert, the people who were fighting against the slavers. Most of the resistance was captured, they’re all slaves again, and it was my fault and now I can’t _do anything!_ ” Anakin is almost shouting now, his hands clenched tight.

Siri glances over; there’s a trooper watching them, one called Ringer, she thinks. He nods at her, then stands and starts off pacing the line Siri was watching. Sometimes it’s nice to work in a group, she thinks.

She sits down next to Anakin, butt in the yellow dirt. “This is really a talk Obi-Wan should be having with you,” she says. “But he’s not here, and your mom’s not here, so I guess it’s me, now.”

Anakin glances at her, his eyes slightly narrowed, like he’s not quite sure what exactly is going on here.

“Master Shmi talks about patience a lot,” Siri says. “And that has a lot to do with this, but not everything. There are some issues that are like a dam you’re trying to break – you spring a leak, then there’s nothing you can do but let things play out however they will. Some things are like a mountain you’re trying to wear down, and that’s a different kind of patience, the kind where you have to keep working and working at it. Sometimes… sometimes all you want to do is find the ones who are hurting people and make _them_ hurt, make them _stop_ , and it burns inside you because you can do it, can’t you, you can _help_ …” Siri stops, and takes a deep breath.

Shmi is like the rock holding down the sky, solid and unshaking and certain; Obi-Wan is water, gently flowing, steadily wearing, inevitable as time, for all that flash floods can destroy cities. Siri has always known that she needs to find a different kind of calm.

“There’s a saying,” she says. “That you should light a candle, rather than curse the darkness. I’ve sometimes thought that a flamethrower would be more useful in that situation.” She grins, and Anakin laughs a little bit, before the seriousness of the topic brings them back down out of the atmosphere. “But fire gives light, and fire burns. There’s a balance there, like there is everything else. You need to find it. You don’t want to burn yourself up from the inside out, trying to save everyone – and you don’t want that light to go out, to go all cold and dark and dead.”

“So…” Anakin says, and she can still feel his frustration with the situation, shoved down and haphazardly half-ignored as he tries to find the lesson she’s trying to help him learn. “I should do what I can to solve the situation I’m in.” It’s not what he wants to hear. It’s what she’s been saying – he just needs to think a little broader.

“Yep,” she says, and grins. “But Anakin. You’re a Jedi – what’s the singular of Jedi?”

He raises an eyebrow, looking almost like Obi-Wan for an instant. “Jedi,” he says.

“And the plural–”

“The plural of Jedi is also Jedi,” he says. “What’s the point–”

“Why in the world would you run off to Tatooine all alone in the middle of a war when you could ask the council for permission, and take a battalion or two along for help?” Siri asks. “Seriously, if you can get them actually in control of the planet, who knows how many hyperspace lanes it could open up for republic use? The hutts have already sided with the Separatists, it’s not like you’re going against a neutral system, or anything.”

Anakin is still staring at her, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, when one of the troopers on watch signals that something is coming over the horizon.

“All right, then,” Siri says, and stands. “Let’s see what these bolt-heads have come up with to ruin our day.”

Their day is well and truly ruined with the arrival of a second army in the distance, complete with twenty anti-spacecraft cannons.

Commander Atin swears when he sees it, and Siri wants to do the same.

“Master Mundi and his reinforcements are arriving in a few hours, aren’t they,” Anakin says, his voice shaking a little bit.

“They are,” Siri replies shortly. “All right. New plan. Master Barrek’s forces have held out this long; we need to focus on those cannons, or else they’ll destroy our reinforcements as they get here.”

“They’re a new model,” Major Blue says, his binoculars scanning from cannon to cannon. “The weaknesses on the top-level hatches have been fixed, and I think I can see shielding along the barrel. The hovertreads also look like they can pop up some shielding. This isn’t going to be easy.”

“We’re going to have to try,” Commander Atin snaps back.

Siri and Anakin exchange a glance. There is no _try_ , but… twenty cannons, their weaknesses unknown, guarded by an entire army? Those aren’t going to be easy to destroy in just a few hours.

They’re going to have to try, as Commander Atin has said.

“Have half the troops hold our position,” Siri says. “The other half will come with us on the offensive. We have to assume…” She takes a deep breath. “We have to assume that our space forces have been completely destroyed. Our reinforcements will be, too, if we don’t get rid of those cannons. Anakin, you did high-level mechanics classes, right? See if you can work out any possible weak points. Commander, with me. Let’s strategize.”

 

 

Maybe we’re going to die here, Siri thinks.

They’ve taken out three of the anti-spacecraft cannons. Three. Of _twenty_.

The morning sky has been streaked with light from bits of space-junk falling through the atmosphere. The Separatists control the space above Hypori, and soon they’ll control the ground, too.

“Sir,” says Major Blue, and Siri can hear the exhaustion in his voice. “The droid army is opening a path.”

That makes Siri pause her melancholy reflection. “Which army, and which way?”

“Through to the 73rd,” Major Blue says. “It seems like the army is circling around to join the other army, leaving it clear for us to advance that way.”

“That’s a trap or a taunt,” Siri says.

“Yes, sir,” Major Blue says. “What are we going to do about it?”

Siri scans the horizon. The advancing army has been skirmishing with them all day; with the defending army moving around them, they could be crushed in a vice at any time. There’s really only one option, here.

“Take the bait,” Siri says. “Master Barrek should have a fort, or the remains of one, that they’ve holed up in; let’s see if we can–”

“Sir!” One of the troopers jogs up to join them. “Scouts have reported that there’s, uh, not much of a fort left. The 73rd is coming to us, and they’re… down to a few squads.”

“A few _squads_?” Major Blue sounds horrified. “That’s worse than we thought!”

“Okay,” Siri says. “Okay. They’re coming to join us. We can handle that.”

“They seem to be, uh…” the trooper pauses. “Rapidly retreating towards us, to be more precise, General.”

“What,” Siri says flatly, “In the world could make them _rapidly retreat_ not away from but _towards_ an army of droids?”

“Well–”

“Siri!”

Siri turns. “Anakin, what–”

“They’re surrounding us,” he says, out of breath. “I climbed up on one of the crashed cruisers and used the Force to lift myself up a little more, and the first army isn’t pulling apart to join the second one, they’re pulling apart and moving backwards, so we’re with the 73rd but we’re surrounded on all sides.”

Siri closes her eyes. “Of course,” she says. “And General Mundi will get here any time, now, and be blown apart by the anti-spacecraft cannons, and something is making the 73rd flee from the only fortifications they have. Someone find me Commander Atin.”

“Yes, sir,” says the trooper who’d given them the report, and jogs off.

It’s one hammer blow after another, each one a sign of total defeat, of death, of hopelessness, but Siri is a Jedi. She can withstand this. She _will_ withstand this, and do her best to win, even though she still may lose. _I will persevere_ , she whispers to herself in the Force. _I will weather this storm, no matter how hard the winds may blow_. Sometimes it’s better to light a flamethrower than to curse the darkness. Sometimes all she can do is keep the tiniest spark aglow.

Major Blue gets a call – “Report,” he says, and then, “I see. Sir. Commander Atin is dead. A skirmish broke out on the western side of our fortifications, and there was a sniper.”

“I see,” Siri says. _The Force is with me, and hope remains_ , she thinks, and does her best to believe it. She _has_ to believe it, or she has nothing else left. “Then, Commander Blue–”

“But–” Blue protests. “Major Fuse has seniority–”

Siri glances up at the sky. “Major Fuse is dead,” she says. “All our space forces our dead. Half our ground forces are, too. We’re surrounded by two droid armies, and our reinforcements will be blown out of the sky. I’m not sure seniority matters, in this situation.”

Commander Blue takes a deep breath; she can feel his fear, she can feel him pulling himself together. “Yes, sir,” he says.

She rests a hand on his shoulder. “We all do what we can,” she says. “That’s all any of us can do, in the end. But there’s no point in not trying.”

“Yes, sir,” he says, with a little more conviction. “In… in that case, we should go greet the 73rd.”

“And find out what they’re running from,” Anakin says.

And that, Siri thinks.

Master Barrek finds them as they go to meet the troops, his padawan trailing behind him. Both of them are shaking.

“Knight Tachi,” Master Barrek says. “Padawan Skywalker… it won’t be enough. I don’t know what _could_ be enough. Have you any way to get us off-planet?”

Siri frowns. “No. Master Mundi’s reinforcements are going to be shot down by those cannons, we’ve only managed to disable a few. Master Barrek, what _happened_ here?”

Padawan Gi shudders. “The General,” he says, fear clogging his voice. “He’s so _fast_ , faster than anything, and he just came out of nowhere…”

Master Barrek shakes his head. “Courage, Sha’a,” he says. “The trap will surely suffice.”

“Trap?” Siri barely has time to ask, before what remains of the 73rd’s fortifications explodes in a ball of fire and light.

“The droid general of this army,” Master Barrek explains. He tries to project calm and certainty, but… he’s nearly as scared as his padawan. “A vicious fighter. It was all we could to to trap him beneath some rubble, plant explosives, and run.”

Chill-bumps creep up Siri’s spine. “A droid general stood against two Jedi,” she says.

Master Barrek looks down.

“We have to assume that if he could stand against two Jedi, he could get out of a building,” Siri says. “Have the scouts watch for… what does he look like?”

“All white,” Padawan Gi says. “With his mask, and his cloak, but that’s red like blood on the underside. But we’ll hear him first–”

There’s a soft _boom_ , the sound of a ship hitting the atmosphere just after exiting from hyperspace; then another, then another.

“Reinforcements,” Master Barrek says, hope growing in his eyes. “We can–”

Siri _shrieks_ in the Force, as loud as she can, calling up to Master Mundi, _It’s a trap, you’ll be shot down, the cannons–_

The cannons fire.

“Hold the fortifications!” Anakin bellows – he’s been paying attention to the clones while Siri’s focus has been on the Jedi. “Focus on the army, scouts watch for debris!”

Siri takes a deep breath. “We do what we can,” she repeats to herself, one last time. “Anakin. You’re our deflector shields, for now. Redirect the debris; don’t bother lifting it far away, just change its angle of descent, make sure it doesn’t fall on us. Padawan Gi, Master Barrek, go with him, watch for any parts of ships with sentients still alive. If you spot any, make sure they land safely.”

Anakin and Padawan Gi nod; Master Barrek hesitates a moment, then follows suit.

“Commander Blue, focus our defense on where the army is closest to us, but keep scouts watching in all directions; we’re surrounded, but loosely. Don’t let us be flanked. And keep me updated on where the fighting is thickest.”

“Sir–” Commander Blue protests.

Siri ignites her lightsaber. “They need reinforcements over on the west side, and I can help the most,” she snaps. “Have one of the captains coordinate with what’s left of the 73rd. May the Force be with you all.”

“Force be with you, General Tachi,” Master Barrek says quietly, then turns his attention skyward.

Siri turns towards their western fortifications. She has some droids to kick.

 

 

Siri has lost count of how many droids she’s destroyed when a shadow comes over her part of the battlefield, then descends slower than it should, landing with nothing more than a muted _thump_.

It’s the entire front half of a star destroyer, she sees, guided down carefully by the three other Jedi – no.

There are survivors in what remains of the ship, but five burn brightly in the Force.

The droids break off the assault, all at once, retreating; Siri doesn’t have time to contemplate why.

“Hold the line,” she orders Captain Jinx, and turns to meet Master Mundi and what’s left of his reinforcements.

Major – no, Commander Blue meets her as she jogs across the yellow dust.

“There’s not much left,” the Commander says. “Five Jedi – Generals Mundi, Secura, K’kruhk, Seir and Ti. They’ve got about three surviving squads, but about half the troopers are badly injured.”

“Get them to our makeshift infirmary,” Siri orders.

Commander Blue grins for the first time in… hours, probably. “Already done, sir. Commander Skywalker also said something about adding that wreck to our fortifications, like you did before.”

“Huh,” Siri says. “Well, once he gets an idea he runs with it, doesn’t he?” She sprints the last few paces to the shelter of the fallen star destroyer.

“General Tachi,” Ki-Adi-Mundi says. “It’s very nice to see you alive.”

“It’s pretty nice to be alive, too,” she says.

They all look pretty beat-up, but not badly injured; K’kruhk looks like he’s limping a bit, Aayla’s arm is definitely bruised, and Tarr Seir has a small, bleeding gash on his face that’s mostly stopped bleeding.

“We’ve got fortifications on all sides,” she says without preamble. “But we also have a sea of droids on all sides; we’re holding for now, but they’ll wear us down soon.”

“We got off a transmission, right before we crashed,” Shaak Ti says. “And those cannons look like they will take a while to recharge. If anyone is close enough to arrive within a planetary cycle, we may be able to salvage the situation.”

Master Barrek shakes his head. “The situation is likely unsalvageable,” he insists. “I want to believe that the droid general died when we blew up our fortifications, but we cannot count on that.”

“Is he hard to fight, then?” Aayla asks curiously.

Master Barrek shudders. “Two lightsabers, stolen from fallen Jedi,” he says, and they all inhale sharply. This is more serious than they thought. “More on his belt, in case he’s disarmed. And he’s a cyborg, he’s ridiculously fast, and I’m not sure a hit will necessarily take him down. Both his hands and his feet are clawed; he’ll be able to climb, and maybe jump, too. We _can’t_ risk fighting him again.”

In the silence that follows, Siri becomes aware that the sounds of the battlefield have changed. Quieted down. Something is wrong.

Exchanging glances with the other Jedi, Siri can tell that they know it, too.

“Sir,” Commander Blue says quietly. “We’re getting… strange reports from the fortifications.”

“Stay here,” she says quietly, not letting herself mind the fact that most of these Jedi are far more senior than she is. “I’ll go investigate.”

The other Jedi are quiet as she walks the few meters out of the shelter and into the sunlight. Siri is aware of Blue’s quiet steps following her; part of her wants to tell the commander to stay with the others, but part of her doesn’t mind having someone she trusts at her back.

“I need to get to know you better,” she says quietly, almost wistfully. “What’s your favorite color? What type of music do you like?” She had barely known Atin at all. But she’s going to be trusting these men with her life. Maybe she can trust them with other things, too.

“What do I want to be when I grow up?” Blue asks dryly. “And I think you already know the answer to the first question, sir. I’ll gladly answer any others you have, though, if we get out of here alive.”

Siri grins wryly. “Oh, good. I’d hate to think we were being optimistic.” She glances around the battlefield, taking stock of how the battles are going. The area she’s just left, the westward flank, is holding secure; the droids have broken off the assault for now. But as she continues to scan the battlefield, a frown grows on her face; the droids have stopped assaulting their forward and eastern fortifications as well, stepping back and creating a perimeter. The droids are breaking off their assault, even though the Republic’s forces were losing.

At least nothing’s changed with their rearward fortifications; the long line that she and Anakin had set up remains uncontested so far, the droid army still circling the remains of the 73rd’s fortifications–

“Wait,” Siri says. She squints at the line of downed ships, and sees… something. “What’s–”

Their rearward fortifications explode.

Siri is tossed back by the explosion, and the next thing she’s aware of is Blue rolling over her, pulling her along into the shadow of the star destroyer.

Beyond the ringing in her ears, she can hear Anakin swearing. “That was _all_ of our fortifications on that side,” he says. “What _happened_?”

Master Barrek and Padawan Gi exchange a glance, then Master Barrek closes his eyes.

“Grievous,” he says.

Siri can see Ki-Adi-Mundi close his eyes and pray to the Force. Shaak Ti turns and nudges K’kruhk.

“We’d heard rumors,” Master Mundi says. “But nothing on this scale!”

“That’s their general, then?” Anakin asks. “General Grievous?”

_Clank_.

“He’s coming,” Padawan Gi whispers.

Siri takes a deep breath, coughs the last dust out of her lungs, then rolls to her feet.

“We’ll make a trap for him,” she says, and everyone’s eyes turn to her. “This wreck is big enough to be a maze,” she continues.

_Clank_.

“Commander Blue, make sure the droids don’t advance while we’re dealing with Grievous,” Siri says, and meets Ki-Adi-Mundi’s eyes. “He’s challenging us. Let’s make it clear that nine Jedi are a force to be reckoned with.”

_Clank_.

A smile curves its way up Shaak Ti’s face, and not a particularly nice one. “A wonderful plan, General Tachi,” she says.

“We _can’t_ fight him,” Padawan Gi says desperately. “You didn’t _see_ –”

Master Barrek lays a hand on his padawan’s arm. “Sha’a,” he says gently. “What other choice do we have?”

Padawan Gi closes his eyes.

_Clank_.

“We can do it,” Anakin says. “Say it. Out loud, Sha’a, we can _do this_.”

Sha’a takes a deep shuddering breath. “We can do this,” he says.

_Clank_.

_…_

_Clank._

_…_

_Clank._

_…_

_…_

_…_

They ignite their lightsabers as one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I [posted a snippet of this on my tumblr](http://mirandatam.tumblr.com/post/149914090262/im-going-to-be-on-a-plane-for-all-of-tomorrow) a few weeks ago, along with a little bit of something else; I don't think anything's changed from that section, actually.
> 
> This was originally going to be chapter 3, and have a different ending; unfortunately, chapter 2 has been being a bitch and Slick is not an easy POV character to write, it'll probably alternate between him and Shmi. So this is chapter 2 now. Chapter 3 will be... fun. For everyone. Really, it's a party. (No promises for when I'll get it up, unfortunately; school is rough this semester.)
> 
> But I've been writing more, these past couple of days, so maybe something good will happen! (Mostly, though, I just wanted some extra Birthday Validation. Yay for entering my twenties. Being an adult is _awful_.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Choices are made, decisions are fought over. Nobody is having a nice day in this fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is one heck of a mess for several reasons:  
> a) it alternates perspective between Shmi and Slick, because my muse hates me sometimes. I hope that's clear and doesn't throw anyone off too much.  
> b) it draws a lot from Clone Wars (the cgi one this time), specifically one arc. You all know what arc, or you will. (To all you people who haven't seen clone wars... sorry. I really do hope this makes sense. Bad news: a lot of this au continuing on will have clone wars-related things. Good news: this means you have an excuse to watch clone wars!)  
> c) stress

“Master Skywalker, this is completely unnecessary–”

“I think,” Shmi says, quietly and coldly, as strong as stone, “That I will be the judge of what is necessary here, Chancellor.”

Chancellor Palpatine coughs. “Ah, yes, well–”

“Volunteered to inspect the troops, Master Skywalker has,” Yoda says. “Very kind, her offer is.”

“Very noble, yes, Master Skywalker,” the Chancellor says. “I’m merely worried that this… this _inspection_ will yield some un-needed delays.”

Delays in battle? Shmi thinks.

“Delays in saving the people who we need to be defending the most,” Chancellor Palpatine continues. “We must think first of those whom we seek to defend, must we not?”

“Of course,” Shmi says calmly. “I understand, Chancellor. Those innocent lives we defend have the utmost priority.”

Chancellor Palpatine beams.

“Which is, of course, why I’m insisting on personally inspecting all of the battalions of the Grand Army of the Republic,” Shmi says.

Chancellor Palpatine stares at her.

“For the good of the people,” Shmi says, looking him squarely in the eye.

“Ah,” the Chancellor says softly. “I believe I understand.” He stares at her a long moment – Shmi wonders what he’s thinking, behind that politician’s face of his. “Of course you shall be permitted to inspect the legions of the Grand Army of the Republic. However, a careful itinerary must be set; who knows what dangers could befall you?”

I am hardly defenseless, Shmi thinks, but nods.

“Now, Master Yoda – which of the legions are closest to Coruscant right now? So that we may determine a good starting point,” the Chancellor says. “There’s no sense in being inefficient, now, is there?”

“Hmm,” Yoda says. “Closest, the 63rd, 212th, 377th, and the 144th are. Waiting for Master Kenobi’s recovery, the 212th is; led by Master Dooku, the 63rd is; by Knight Torgore, the 377th; and by Master Krell, the 144th.”

Chancellor Palpatine beams. “Well, there we have our beginning itinerary! First you shall visit Master Dooku, then Master Krell, then Knight Torgore. And Master Kenobi, of course, if he’s recovered in time; how is that proceeding, by the way?”

“Well,” Shmi says. “The healers say he should be able to join the two hundred twelfth in another week.”

“That’s fantastic news – we need every general we can get.” His smiling face falls and he looks down, clearly sorrowful.

Politicians, Shmi thinks. Her opinion of them hasn’t exactly improved since she’d met with Valorum, her first year as a Jedi; she’s met good ones, of course, like Senator Amidala, but overall they dither and lie too much for her to like them.

“A marvelous recovery, and one in the face of great adversity,” Chancellor Palpatine says. “I don’t suppose there’s been any news about Master Qui-Gon Jinn?”

“There has not,” Yoda says shortly. “Still missing, he is. On Tatooine, we have found no trace; no other leads do we have.”

“I am very sorry to hear that,” the Chancellor says. “Master Jinn has always been one of the most admirable Jedi in the Order; his mission record is nearly unparalleled.”

Neither Shmi nor Yoda reply.

All three of them, Shmi is sure, know the odds of a lone Jedi being found in the middle of a galactic civil war; however, that’s no excuse for the Chancellor to speak as if he’s dead already.

Dead trying to help her son, Shmi thinks, and lets the thought flow away, lets it pass over her. Qui-Gon could very well still be alive, somewhere; he’s far from an unskilled initiate, as Chancellor Palpatine has so _kindly_ pointed out.

But if he’d followed the trail to Geonosis, and there to Darth Vulsion…

There's no way of knowing if he even landed on Tatooine. Between the thousands of disasters that may have befallen him, the multitude of locations in the galaxy that he could have ended up in, and the fact that Obi-Wan can no long feel the echoes of their old training bond, Qui-Gon's prognosis changes from 'not promising' to 'grim'.

Yoda and the Chancellor exchange pleasantries, and Shmi stands when Yoda does and bows when he does, too, and finally they’re out of the Chancellor’s office.

The Senate building is always fascinating to walk through, both because of its strange opulence and because of all the different fashions she can see; Shmi has never had a particular eye for clothing beyond comfort and practicality, but being friends with Lannai has given her the skills to at least observe the details of fine clothing.

There goes a human senator done all up in green, a blue sash around their waist; they’ll be trying for the Chancellor’s position, though there might not even be elections in wartime, and if there are Palpatine will no doubt be reelected. They pass a Rodian aide, with the tight sleeves and looser tunic that mark them a secretary, though a new one if the spots Shmi sees on their sleeve are ink splotches.

“Master Skywalker, Master Yoda!” A voice calls out from a nearby office.

Shmi turns with a smile. She hadn’t realized they were passing Senator Amidala’s offices until she’d called out.

“Wonderful, it is, to see you,” Yoda says, entering the Senator’s office; Shmi follows him in, to see not only Padmé but Beru as well, and…

“Kelin,” Shmi says, and hugs the other woman.

“Shmi,” Kelin says into Shmi’s ear. “It’s so good to see you well.”

Shmi leans back, holding Kelin at arm’s length and seeing what changes ten years have wrought in one of her closest friends.

Kelin’s hair has many grey strands, but then so does Shmi’s, now. They’re both older, yes, and they’re both free.

“I’m sorry I haven’t come to see you and the others yet,” Shmi says. “It’s been… busy, these past few weeks.”

“I’ve heard,” Kelin says drily. “Beru will speak of practically nothing else.”

Beru grimaces. “I haven’t been _that_ obsessed.”

Kelin gives Shmi a look, and Shmi returns it in kind. Oh, but it’s so good to have another person who understands what raising a child is like.

“We’re discussing whether we can relocate the group to Naboo,” Padmé explains from her seat at the desk. “Given that there’s already a fairly large diaspora group there, I thought it might be a good place; but there are… difficulties.”

Beru makes deliberate eye contact with Shmi, then glances down at Yoda. She makes a sign with her hands, one that wouldn’t be noticeable as any sort of sign language by one who didn’t already know it. _Is he trustworthy?_ She asks.

“He is,” Shmi says, replying aloud to the unspoken question. “Though you may want to close the door, if it’s so sensitive.”

“We were just about to, when the Senator saw you two walking by,” Beru says.

Padmé presses a button, and the door does slide closed. “Now,” she says. “What was your concern?”

“We got off Kamino thanks to a few runaway clones,” Kelin says bluntly. “If they travel through any conventional means, they’ll be identified and court-martialed, they’ve said. Some of them are willing to go back to the war, for the sake of their brothers; some of them aren’t.”

“A solution, I may have,” Yoda says.

Kelin raises a skeptical eyebrow, but nods at him to continue.

“Touring the army, Master Skywalker will be,” Yoda says. “Inspecting the troops, yes, as well as the Jedi commanding them.”

“So that I can make sure the Jedi are treating the clones well,” she says casually. It’s a different excuse than she’d given Chancellor Palpatine.

Shmi sees a quick smile cross Kelin’s face; Kelin, at least, knows what she’ll _really_ be inspecting for.

“If wish to return, these clones do,” Yoda continues, either missing or ignoring the brief exchange, “Then perhaps an escort, Master Skywalker will have.”

Kelin nods slowly. “I’ll ask them, but it seems like a reasonable solution,” she says.

“As for the ones who don’t wish to return,” Padmé says, picking up the thread of the conversation. “Genetic testing cannot be done without a warrant at the very least, and I’d hardly begrudge a few of... let’s say a few of your mandalorian friends accompanying your family to Naboo.”

Beru grins. “That could work. They _are_ my brothers; they’ve got a right to wear beskar’gam.”

Yoda looks serene, seeming to not mind the idea of clones deserting from the army and hiding on Naboo.

Shmi and Kelin exchange another glance. Hiding deserting clones on Naboo won’t work forever, especially not if Shmi _does_ find a good way out for the clones during her inspections.

 

 

There are too many choices, Slick thinks.

Green fruit, orange fruit, purple fruit – kriff, even fruit colored in spectrums that humans couldn’t see in. Why are there so many different _kinds_? Who even _needs_ that many different kinds of fruit?

Who even needs most of the things that were for sale on the lower levels, would be the real question. But if he looks out at the crowd, at the hustle and bustle and movement of so many different types of beings, well, he supposes that it makes sense. Because there really is a ridiculous amount of people down here, all moving together haphazardly, pushing and shoving and yelling. He might almost say it makes him long for the order and quietness of Kamino, but also, kriff that.

So, you know what? There’s a _totally reasonable_ amount of choices. He can deal with the amount of choices. He can _embrace_ the amount of choices, even if it is sort of dizzying.

Slick can handle this.

Ize appears at his side – well, probably doesn’t just _appear_ , but it’s not like Slick can tell through this crowd.

“You found what you’re looking for?” His brother asks cheerfully.

Slick glares at him. “Not yet. What was the thing that Mrs. Whitesun wanted?”

“Jogan fruit,” Ize says. “That’s the… purple one?”

“Sure,” Slick says, and grabs a few. He has the haggling part down, at least – the shopkeeper snarls at him in Bothan, he growls right back in Mando’a, and they leave the stall only a few credit chips lighter.

“You’re still set on going back?” Ize asks once they’re back in the pressing crowd.

Slick nods once, sharply. “I can’t leave the rest of our brothers.”

Ize looks down, and Slick swears quietly in his head.

“It’s good that you’re staying out,” he says. “No way I could blame you for that, not when it’s what I want everyone to do.”

“Still feels like I’m leaving them behind, though,” Ize says. Then some sort of alien he doesn’t recognize slams right into the two of them, cursing them out.

Slick elbows the alien out of the way, then grabs Ize’s arm and drags him into the nearest shelter, a stall selling cloth.

There’s a Jedi in the stall.

Slick freezes, then goes to shove Ize back out into the crowd, where he can try to blend in and escape, but Ize puts a hand on his shoulder.

“That’s Master Skywalker,” he whispers into Slick’s ear.

The Jedi – Shmi Skywalker – is studying them with a sharp eye, catching the hand on Slick’s shoulder, the expression on his face, the bag of fruit in his hand.

Beru and her mother have told them about Shmi Skywalker, of course – how she’s fighting with the Chancellor to be allowed to go inspect the troops, make sure that everything is all right, with the sideways glances that mean _all right_ is something the Senate and the Jedi might not exactly approve of.

That doesn’t mean Slick has to like her.

“Excuse me,” she tells the shopkeeper, and goes over to Slick and Ize.

Slick tries to make himself calm down, but after looking over his shoulder for weeks worrying about Jedi spotting a group of renegade clones, it’s more than a little tricky. Ize, on the other hand, seems more excited than anything else; this brother of his doesn’t have more than half a dreg of self-preservation.

Skywalker pauses in front of them, her skirts swirling dark green; Slick can spot at least one, maybe two hidden weapons aside from the outline of a lightsaber against her leg. “You’re two of the ones who helped Kelin and the others off Kamino.”

“Us and three others,” Ize says, and Slick elbows him. She may be friendly, but that doesn’t mean she’s _friendly_.

“I’m Slick,” he says, before Ize can introduce them. “CT-1009. This is Ize.” He doesn’t say Ize’s number, and he doesn’t call her _sir_ – how will she react to that? Will she ask for it, demand it, just narrow her eyes at them and wait?

She doesn’t seem to notice that it’s missing as she inclines her head slightly. “I’m Shmi Skywalker, which I think you already know. I’d planned on introducing myself to you this evening, but as you appear to have been recruited for the pre-departure shopping trips... well. It’s nice to meet you, Slick, Ize.”

Slick nods shortly and doesn’t salute; Ize follows his lead.

“Kelin and I have come up with a few ideas for the future,” Skywalker says. “We’ll explain more this evening, when there are less chances for prying ears.”

The market does seem like the place for ears to be prying. Slick nods sharply, then grabs Ize’s arm and drags him off.

“She seems nice,” Ize says cheerfully as they’re swept back into the flow of the crowds.

“She’ll do,” Slick growls. Then, “Okay, what the hell is a melioorun?”

 

 

Kelin takes Shmi to the quarters the tatooinians are staying in the next day, for introductions and reintroductions.

It’s definitely very strange, seeing people she hasn’t seen in ten years, catching glimpses of the culture she used to live in. The sharp smell of tzai, the cuts and colors of clothing, it could almost make her wonder if she’s dreamed the whole ten years.

But other things are different, of course – Coruscant’s traffic in the background, Beru’s armor and how everyone has aged. There’s no going back to the past, and Shmi wouldn’t really want to, anyways.

“While Master Kenobi’s distracting the children,” Beru says ( _while the children are distracting Master Kenobi_ , really – both of them have agreed that Obi-Wan does far too much moping) “Why don’t you come meet your, uh, escort.”

Shmi raises an eyebrow, but nods and follows Beru out of the busy kitchen and into another room.

There are five men in the room, all identical – no, not quite, Shmi knows. They have the same face, but their hair is cut differently, their armor decorated differently. They feel different in the Force, too, as she and Obi-Wan had felt on Kamino; of the two she’d met in the market earlier, one grins at her and one glares.

“So,” says the glaring one, and clears his throat. “We met earlier. I’m Slick; this is Ize. This is Lockup, Skimmer, and Hammer. Hammer ‘n Ize are staying with Kelin; the three of us are going with you.”

“I’m Shmi Skywalker, which Beru or Kelin may have told you already,” Shmi says; Just as Slick had watched her reaction in the market, he seems to be waiting for something, and relaxes after a few moments. Shmi doesn’t know what it is he keeps watching for, but she knows slaves. He’s testing the boundaries, seeing whether she’ll reprimand him for disrespect or something similar.

The thought that they have bigger problems than a planet full of slavers rests uneasily in her mind; but for all the kaminoans’ evils, the Sith have made themselves the more apparent threat.

That doesn’t mean there’s nothing Shmi can do to fix both of those problems, though.

“My stated goal is to inspect the troops and make sure that everything is flowing efficiently,” Shmi says. “That’s the excuse we told the Chancellor. The goal that I explained to Master Yoda is making sure that all your… brothers? Are being treated well.” She keeps herself calm. “Of course, I might have failed to specify what exactly ‘well’ entails in this situation. In the best case scenario, we will be able to find some way to help all the clones leave the army without provoking senatorial action.”

“And without getting massacred by droids,” one of them – Hammer – points out. “There’s still a war on, and even though Ize and me are getting out, you can’t not have an army. You’ll all get killed.”

“I did say best case scenario,” Shmi admits. “We’re currently searching for other ways to end this war, but it’s far from easy. Realistically, what we’ll be doing is making sure that no Jedi is treating the clones as less than people, and scouting around to see what the easiest way will be to help the clones that don’t want to fight escape.”

Slick is nodding slowly. “So any brother who needs it can get out, and those of us who can stand it hold out until you get rid of whoever planned this war.”

Skimmer looks over at Slick, startled. “Wait, wait, back up. Planned?”

“We’ve known since it began that this war was planned,” Shmi says, though she wishes she knew how _Slick_ knew. “There are certain unknown parties in the Senate who will be profiting greatly from this war. We Jedi are doing the best we can to find out who and why, but only a few of us know about it, and we can’t raise that number without alerting them to our knowledge.” Theoretically, Shmi shouldn’t even be telling the clones; but they clearly already know, and are just as clearly deeply invested. They deserve to know why they and their brothers are being forced to fight and die.

“Basically, it’s a kriffed up mess,” Lockup says, and grins at Shmi. “The four of us, we’ve been planning this for a while, with Boba and Tailspin. But Tailspin busted his arm up a few days ago, so when Boba put in the call, we grabbed Skimmer as our backup pilot.”

Skimmer just shakes his head and sighs. “I can’t wait ‘till I’m back with _sane_ brothers, instead of you lot.”

“You’ll be back soon enough,” Shmi says, amused at the clones’ antics – however old they are in body, they certainly _act_ enough like her son and his friends for her to see the similarities. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow. I’m sorry it’s so little warning. Our first stop will be the sixty-third.”

Slick nods decisively. “There are some good brothers in the sixty-third. We’ll be ready, General Skywalker.”

Shmi looks at Slick, nonplussed. “I’m… not a general, as far as I’m aware,” she says.

Slick stares back at her. “What is your rank, then? You haven’t stood on us calling you _sir_ , but it’ll be expected when we get to the army. Sir,” he says pointedly.

“… I have absolutely no idea what my rank in the army is, or if I even have one,” Shmi says.

Slick sighs. “You’ll want to find that out before we ship out,” he says. “Otherwise things could get… not exactly bad, but complicated.”

“I will,” Shmi says. The thought of having a rank in the army is… uncomfortable. She doesn’t think she’ll like being called _sir_.

But Slick is right. Being addressed due to her ‘proper rank’ _will_ be expected when they’re inspecting the army. One more burden that she’ll have to carry.

It’ll probably be better than being “Master Skywalker” to an army of slaves.

 

“General Skywalker,” Slick says.

His new general doesn’t grimace, but she definitely doesn’t smile, either; if she were a trooper, the face she has on would be worn when she got orders she didn’t like or got reassigned away from all the brothers she knew.

“Sergeant Slick,” she says in reply. “We’re ready to ship out?”

“Yes, sir,” he says. “A ship arrived from the 63rd, accompanied by a pilot and another trooper; General Dooku has sent them to escort you.”

She sighs. “Of course he has.”

Slick is empathizing with General Skywalker more than he thought he would. She seems… well, she seems to hate the situation as much as he does, as much as Sarad does.

“Anyone we know?” Lockup asks.

Slick glares at his brother. “No,” he says. “So be _careful_. Actually careful, not the careful where you’re trying to get in trouble on purpose.”

“Yes, sir,” Lockup says, and nods at Slick without winking, which is how Slick _really_ knows he can trust him.

General Skywalker has her hands folded carefully in her lap, pale brown against her dark green skirt; Slick knows there’s a battalion with that color, he just can’t remember _which_. He’s abandoned his own 501 st dark blue for now, and doesn’t know if he’ll get it back; Lockup was slated for the 73rd in brick red, and Skimmer for the same. Ize and Hammer would have both worn the 104th’s grey. Now they’ll wear beskar’gam.

General Skywalker stands, and Slick turns to see two brothers approaching, their armor edged in pale blue.

“General,” says the one without a pilot’s insignia. Both salute. “CT-8850 and CT-2998, prepared to escort you to General Dooku, sir.”

“And your names, please?” General Skywalker asks.

“Rano and Darts, sir,” Rano says, and glances towards Slick, Lockup, and Skimmer. “General Dooku wasn’t informed that you would be bringing an escort with you, sir.”

Slick wants to retort, to snap back – but Rano had only _implied_ that they were an incompetent escort, not outright stated it. There’s no guarantee that Skywalker even caught the hint of an insult – and Slick is playing the loyal, dutiful clone right now. He can’t afford to speak over his general.

“Well,” she says, her tone not cold but somehow implying so, “I wasn’t informed that General Dooku was sending an escort, either.”

Rano and Darts exchange a glance.

Slick decides it’s time to intervene. “Why don’t you show us to the ship, troopers,” he says. “We don’t want General Skywalker to miss her departure window.”

“Of course,” Rano says, his face blank. “This way, sir.”

He glances at Slick, his narrowed eyes saying _General Dooku sent_ me _to guard her_.

Slick grins back. It’s not a nice grin, really. _My general_.

The ship isn’t large – well, it doesn’t need to be, they’ll only be in hyperspace for an hour or so. There’s a few seats; General Skywalker sits in one, and Rano takes another, as Darts moves to the front of the ship.

Slick, Lockup, and Skimmer remain standing.

Rano glares at them as the ship takes off; Slick keeps his face carefully neutral. Professional, even.

He notices General Skywalker watching them, of course; She’s subtle about it, but she catches his eye a few times. She’s… if anything, she seems amused, actually.

As they approach the 63rd, Rano has to go up front to give the landing confirmation; as soon as he’s out of earshot, General Skywalker turns to face them fully.

“There’s some sort of competition I’m missing the details of,” she observes.

Slick snorts. Of course she wouldn’t miss they way they’re all pushing at Rano, the way Rano is pushing back.

Lockup is outright grinning. “We’re proving we’re more professional by standing guard,” he explains. “Partly ‘cause he was rude earlier, partly ‘cause it’s hilarious.”

“We won,” Slick says. “Which means that he can’t say we’re not escorting you well enough.”

General Skywalker raises an eyebrow. “Was that a real worry?”

“Probably not,” Slick says. There’s no way Rano has a high enough rank to go against General Skywalker.

Then Skimmer speaks up.

“I’ve seen Rano before,” he says. “He’s black ops.”

“ _What_?” Slick stares at Skimmer. “You’re sure?”

Skimmer nods.

“What does that mean?” General Skywalker asks quietly.

Slick grimaces. “It means something’s wrong. They–”

General Skywalker holds up her hand, a sign to wait, and Slick stops; a second later, Rano walks back into the cabin.

“We’re cleared for landing, sir,” he says. “General Dooku is waiting.”

General Skywalker stands; Slick takes up a position just to the right and behind her, before Rano can. There’s no way he’s letting an unfamiliar black ops brother stand as his general’s second.

The 63rd are painted in pale blue, and when Slick sees their general, he’s wearing the color, too, in twining designs on the cuffs of his sleeves and the collars of his tunics.

“Shmi,” he says, stepping up to greet her; Slick steps back and finds himself next to Rano.

They don’t jostle or shove each other as the group of four follows their generals through the ship; that would just be _unprofessional_.

For all that Slick is watching Rano, he still catches bits of the generals’ conversation.

“… too dangerous, Shmi,” General Dooku is insisting. “Anything could happen–”

“So you want me to remain at the Temple while everyone else risks their lives in this war?” his general snaps back, showing some of that fire she’s been holding back. “You know me better than that, Dooku.”

General Dooku shakes his head. “At least take on a battalion. Don’t just go wandering around the galaxy alone.”

“I’m not alone,” General Skywalker reminds him. “I have three clones guarding me in case of an emergency.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind another one accompanying you, just in case,” General Dooku says.

General Skywalker sighs. “I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. You and Yoda need to stop treating me like I’m made of glass!”

“Please, Shmi,” General Dooku says.

Slick glares at Rano.

Rano looks straight ahead, though his eyes flicker to the side for half a second, and he smirks just a tiny bit.

“Fine,” General Skywalker says.

“Excellent!” General Dooku smiles at her. “I have quarters set up for you, and adjacent ones can be prepared for your men. You’ll be staying for two days, yes?”

General Skywalker nods. “Then on to Master Krell’s battalion, then Knight Torgore’s,” she says.

General Dooku misses a step.

Slick is pretty sure that everyone notices; nobody says anything.

“Of course,” General Dooku says, trying to smooth over the awkward gap. “I… hadn’t realized that… Knight Torgore had been given a battalion. She is quiet young.”

“Well,” General Skywalker says. “Anakin is in charge of a battalion as well, so she’s hardly the youngest.”

“Is he?” General Dooku asks. “I hadn’t realized…”

They talk for a while more, as General Dooku leads them on a tour of the ship. When Slick looks over, Rano is walking calmly, facing straight ahead.

 

 

Shmi only gets the chance to talk to Slick, Lockup, and Skimmer privately on the eve of their departure. Dooku has so far tried to dissuade her no less than seven times in the two days she’s been inspecting the 63rd, and she’s getting tired of it.

“He seems like a good general, as far as generals go,” Skimmer says after she’s snuck into the room they’ve been assigned – thank the Force for vents large enough to climb through. “I talked with the bombers and pilots, and he’s taking care to get to know all the clones here.”

“That doesn’t change that something is wrong,” Lockup insists, leaning upside down off his bunk so that his legs are up on the soft part and his head is resting on the floor. “I’ve got the best nose for trouble in the whole kriffing GAR, and something is wrong here.”

Shmi nods. “I can’t tell what it is,” she says. “But…” she shakes her head. How could she describe how it felt in the Force, all hints of tension like electricity in the air, the way she looked at Dooku and his troops and the blackness of space and thought _chessboard_? “Tell me more about Rano, and the black ops,” she says. “Please.”

Slick nods at Skimmer, a silent order for him to explain; Shmi’s been watching the clones and their body language, trying to understand, but she still doesn’t know why Slick was randomly chosen to be in charge of their little squad.

“He wasn’t in my batch, but our batches practiced together a lot,” Skimmer says. “He was clever, sneaky – not in a shifty way, but in a watching way. He got picked for black ops when we were five – I haven’t seen him since then, which is normal for black ops.”

“There’s a few different types of ops groups,” Slick picks up. “There are the ARC troopers, who handle combat and special ops where stuff needs to get blown up. There are trooper-mechanics, who go out in the field to see where droids and machines have their weak points. Then there are the two sides of intelligence. There’s the ones who break codes and monitor comms and plan things – they don’t get out much, mostly they stay on Kamino and make plans. And there’s black ops, who sneak around and… well, they’re supposed to be down with doing things that aren’t quite, uh, legal. They know how to be sneaky, how to lie, what to watch for, all that spycraft stuff.”

So Dooku has given her a spy, to watch over her.

What is he worried about?

She fists her hands in the dark brown fabric of her skirt. It’s the only sign of her worry she will allow herself; she needs to concentrate on the solutions, now, not just the problems.

“All right,” she says. “Thank you.”

Slick’s eyes are always on her; she can feel him watching, warily, as she climbs back through the vents to her own room. It eats at her, that kind of wariness; here there are slaves, and now she is someone to be feared.

But she can’t break over this. She is a Jedi; she must withstand this, so that she can make it right.

Shmi’s dreams aren’t easy, her last night on Dooku’s ship, but all she can remember when she wakes up are flashes of deep forest green.

In the morning, she pulls on one of the sets of robes she’s packed; she doesn’t realize it until she pulls her hair up into its standard bun that she’s dressed all in dark brown and black. Fitting, for her mood; part of her wants to put on something more colorful. But that feels wrong – not in the Force, but in her heart.

Their ship is set to depart for the 144th just after breakfast. Breakfast is a quiet affair, here; there’s always a contingent on watch, so all the troopers are either just waking up or being quiet enough to not wake anyone else.

Clones talk quietly in the mess hall, drifting in clusters of two or three; Slick, Lockup, and Skimmer sit across from Rano, none of them really talking.

Shmi doesn’t join them immediately; first, she just watches, as she’s been doing since she got here.

For all that Dooku has no reservations about leading the clones into combat, he regards them as his people, his responsibility to lead and protect. He won’t free them, not without outside prompting; Shmi can tell that he probably hasn’t even thought of it as an option. But he won’t lead them into a senseless slaughter.

“General Skywalker!” Shmi blinks, and Lockup is standing in front of her, holding a tray with food on it.

“You should eat, sir,” he says, handing it to her.

“Of course,” she says, taking it. “Have the others eaten, as well?”

Lockup shrugs. “Eh, we’re just finishing up watching Slick and Rano glare at each other.”

“Good,” Shmi says. “Well, not the glaring. The eating. Our transport will leave in about half an hour; Dooku wants to talk to me before then, so I’ll meet you there.”

“Yes, sir,” Lockup says, then pauses.

Shmi feels around with the Force for a moment. “Nobody will hear us, if you speak quietly,” she says.

Lockup flashes her a grin, then his face grows serious. “Slick made Skimmer insist on letting us see the transport – so we could be sure Skimmer could fly it, as an excuse. It was sabotaged.”

Shmi feels herself grow still. “How so,” she asks calmly.

“Not to blow, or anything,” Lockup says quickly. “But we wouldn’t have been able to leave, if they hadn’t fixed it. They made a fuss about it, too, saying how this legion had so many _mechanical defects_ – whoever did it won’t be able to sabotage another ship without it being obvious.”

“I see,” Shmi hears herself say. “Thank you.”

Lockup nods sharply, then turns and starts to walk away. Then he pauses, and looks back. “Don’t forget to eat, General,” he tells her.

Shmi forces a small smile across her face. “I won’t,” she reassures him.

The food tastes bland against the background buzz of her mind, the conflict over what she knows and what she’s seen.

Dooku sits across from where she is sitting, and Shmi sets down her utensils.

“I heard that your men found a small problem when inspecting the shuttle,” he says. “Nothing major, I hope?”

“Not as far as I’m aware,” Shmi says politely. “We should be able to depart on schedule.”

“Good, good,” Dooku says. “And your inspections found nothing amiss, I hope?” It’s phrased almost as a joke.

“Nothing out of the ordinary, no,” Shmi says, and can’t bring up enough energy to give the sentence any tone.

Dooku pauses. “Shmi…”

Shmi takes a small bit of the tasteless food, chews it, swallows it.

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it,” Dooku says, watching her. “What is it?”

“So you can help?” Shmi asks, and oh, she didn’t mean it to come out that bitter.

Dooku pauses, taken aback. “I…”

She looks away from him, out at the soldiers slowly filling the mess hall. “Do you really not see it?” she asks. “You look out at them and you see thousands of individuals, each bright and unique and beautiful, and they fight to protect you and the republic. You see people – different people, even, imagine that! What a _concept_. You look out at them and you never once think _slaves_.”

“Oh,” Dooku breathes. “Shmi–”

“I’ve found nothing out of the ordinary,” she says, her tone empty. “If you’ll excuse me, Master Dooku?”

She leaves him sitting there and goes to wait on the transport, alone with her thoughts.

The chill of the metal and the hum of the engines bring her equilibrium she sorely needs.

It _hurts_ , almost physically, to see her fellow Jedi, the siblings in her heart, unknowingly cause so much pain. She closes her eyes and breathes, in and out, and lets that pain slip away. It’s hard, harder than she expected, to let go. Part of her wants to cling to that pain, that sense of injustice, that sense of betrayal. This is what Zannah would have tempted her with, had Zannah still been there. Shmi can feel, deep in her bones, that this is a pain so deep she could fall from it.

_I will be patience_.

She lets it go.

It is still a wrong that must be addressed, still a need for justice for the slaves the cloners have made. But she will not drown from it.

 

 

Slick’s first impression of General Krell is one of deep, immediate dislike.

Jedi in general aren’t things he likes, in particular. General Skywalker is an outlier, of course – reasonable for a Jedi.

But General Krell?

General Skywalker had let them know that he was a besalisk, giant and four-armed. She hadn’t let them know – maybe hadn’t known to let them know – how his gaze would be, piercing and dismissive at once and epitomizing all the things that Slick really hates about the Jedi. But beyond that first look he barely acknowledges them; it leaves Slick feeling off-balance and out of place.

“Something is weird here,” Lockup mutters, and Slick can’t disagree with him.

Kriff, _Rano_ can’t disagree with him; Slick sees the way the brother is eyeing Krell when the general has his back turned. Which isn’t hard; General Krell has a lot of back. Besalisks are _huge_ , especially when compared with tiny General Skywalker, and it’s pinging a lot of Slick’s frustrating protective instincts.

General Krell leads them through the ship, talking to General Skywalker about troop movements and how the chain of command works, and never once addresses Slick or any of his brothers.

General Skywalker doesn’t show any emotion on her face, and barely any in the rest of her body, but Slick has been watching her for days, and the lines of tension she’d shed as they’d left the 63rd behind are back in force, though it’s harder to tell against the darker clothes – robes? tunics? what are Jedi clothes called? – that she’s wearing today.

Slick will never admit it out loud, but he liked her colorful clothes. That dark green skirt has stuck in his mind – the same color as this legion’s paint, though you’d never know it. Barely one in five brothers has any sort of paint on his armor at all, and even then it’s small, subtle designs that he can barely make out.

He looks over at the 144th’s commander, Lock, marching behind Krell as Slick marches behind General Skywalker.

Lock looks straight ahead, not even glancing over at Slick.

There’s a quiet tap from his other side; Slick looks over, and Rano makes eye contact.

Slick raises an eyebrow.

Rano flicks his eyes down at his hands, and Slick’s gaze follows.

In the standard GAR sign language, Rano says, _Something’s wrong_.

Slick nods curtly. _Bad general, or more?_

Rano’s eyes narrow, and he gestures that he doesn’t know.

Five seconds later, Slick’s attention is abruptly pulled back to the conversation the generals are having, as General Skywalker’s tone turns _icy_.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and it isn’t polite at all. “I _must_ have misunderstood you.”

“I thought I was quite clear.” General Krell waves his hand around expansively. “The chain of command is flawed, as the clones cannot be trusted to make their own decisions; but I suppose we must accept some waste of resources, as we don’t have enough Jedi to command every small group.”

Waste of _resources_.

Dead brothers.

It’s only by keeping his arms straight at his sides, perfect regulation, and his eyes squarely on the fury in General Skywalker’s body that Slick can keep from shooting Krell here and now.

He can hear Skimmer behind him, almost hyperventilating, and Lockup is almost worryingly quiet. Rano’s hands are clenched tight.

On Slick’s other side, Lock keeps marching straight ahead, his eyes fixed on an empty distance.

“I see,” General Skywalker says, quietly, almost mournfully. “… I’m afraid I promised Master Yoda that I would contact him once I reached your legion; if you would direct me to your communications hub?”

She hasn’t promised anything like that, Slick knows. She’s going to call the council, and tell them that Krell is a chakaaryc who shouldn’t be in charge of so much as a squad. Good for her, he thinks.

“Of course,” Krell says. “This way.”

They march in silence, in unison, for a few minutes, as Slick tries not to kill anyone and General Skywalker looks like she’s trying the same, and Krell looks like everything is fine in the galaxy.

Then there’s a step out of place.

Slick looks to his side almost instinctively, and Rano is out of sync.

_What are you doing_ , Slick signs, but Rano is looking away.

Because Slick is looking right at Rano, though, he can see him take a breath, right before he speaks up.

“Sirs, this isn’t the way to the communications hub.”

Krell stops. He doesn’t turn back to look at them; he just crosses one set of arms. “Isn’t it, soldier?”

“No, sir,” Rano says, and swallows. “This is a standard Venator-class Star Destroyer; we’re several levels away from the communications hub and getting further.”

Krell turns to face them, now, and Slick has to resist the urge to back up a step. The kaminoans were this tall, but not this _big_. “And who,” Krell rumbles, “Gave you permission to speak out of turn, soldier?”

General Skywalker steps in between them.

“All of my men have my permission to speak when they deem it necessary,” General Skywalker says, her voice cold.

“A sloppy way of dealing with things,” Krell says.

General Skywalker narrows her eyes. “And yet I asked you to direct me to the communications hub, General Krell.”

Krell is silent.

“Your command style worries me, General Krell,” General Skywalker says after a few moments. “Your disregard for these men’s lives, your apparent disregard for the Council’s orders–”

“And so it comes out,” Krell says, and General Skywalker pauses.

“What?” she asks, and Krell _shoves_ her back with the Force. All five of them fly backwards from the force of it, landing in a pile further down the corridor.

“You’re here to _discredit_ me,” Krell hisses. “You’ve come to strip me of my command, to ruin me!”

“You’ve _proven yourself_ unworthy of a command!” General Skywalker snaps back.

“Maybe not the best thing to say, right now,” Slick says.

“True, though,” Lockup points out.

Krell barely spares them a glance. “I will show them,” he whispers, almost to himself. “They wish to be rid of me? Then _so be it_. I will be rid of _them_.”

General Skywalker is back on her feet now, her stance solid, her lightsaber unlit in her hands but held very much at the ready. Slick stands behind her, his blaster drawn. In the distance, behind Krell, he can see Lock, curled up at the very end of the corridor, as far away as he can get.

“He _warned_ me,” Krell hisses, and his eyes _glow_.

“Who warned you?” General Skywalker asks.

Krell sneers down at them, casually spinning his lighstabers – unlit, just as General Skywalker’s is, but Slick can feel the threat pulsing through the air. “The _Sith_. I thought it was nothing but lies – until you came. It’s a sad day when the words of a Sith are worth more than those of the Jedi Council.”

General Skywalker takes a deep breath. “Even before you fell,” she says. “Before you gave your ear to the Sith to whisper into, you were responsible for the deaths of good men.”

“ _Clones_ ,” Krell snarls. “And you, the _Council_ , would choose these _clones_ over _me_ …” He ignites one lightsaber, then the other – no, they’re both light _staffs_. He spins them, two arms to a lightstaff, twirling them around and around in careful circles.

General Skywalker ignites her own lightsaber. “I would,” she says.

His eyes almost seem to glow brighter. “Then you’ll die like them,” he says, and charges.

 

[](http://poplitealqueen.tumblr.com/post/151228293079/finally-managed-to-work-past-my-art-block-kinda)

 

Even makashi will not save her here, Shmi thinks – the dueling form is meant for _duels_ , not for… well, not for fallen besalisks dual-wielding lightstaffs. It’s all she can do to switch between blocks – high, low, mid, high again as he strikes and spins, the lightstaffs cutting into the walls of the corridor.

“You will _die_ ,” Krell snarls, looming over her, pressing his staffs down on her saber and _leaning_ , pressing until she’s forced to break away or fall. “And I will live, _survive_ , become even greater!”

“You think that’s what will happen?” Shmi asks, using the Force to push a few fallen strands of her hair back. She can’t go for her sling, or the plasma stones – Krell will see her motions and press his attack. “My death will not mean your success, Krell.” She needs to find some way out of this corridor – or, no. His style is barely hampered by the walls, but it is hampered a small bit. If he gets out in the open–

“Oh, but it will,” he says, oozing darkness and smugness. “The Sith crave your death. I will give it to them, and they will give me a place in their order.”

“What?” Shmi takes a step back, then stops herself before she takes another. “What do the Sith hope to gain from _my_ death?”

Krell bares his teeth at her, wide and pointed. “That’s hardly for you to know, false Jedi,” he says.

That, of all the things he’s said, makes her pause. “False?”

“Corruptor,” he spits at her. “Ruining our traditions, taking our Council and twisting them–”

Ah, that’s it. She’s heard it a thousand times before; this, at least, is nothing new. “And you?” She asks. “You, who call me a false Jedi but wants to join the Sith?”

“All beings want to survive,” Krell says. “I will do what I _must_.” He raises his staffs.

“All beings die,” Shmi says. “And I will not let you spread darkness in this galaxy.” I _cannot_ , she thinks. I have to find a way.

Krell spins his lightstaffs, whirling blades of death, and Shmi blocks what she can. She has no time to riposte, no chance to retaliate – he goes from swinging one staff to the other, four separate attacks where she’s used to facing one. She listens to the Force, but all it has to tell her is darkness. And – a warning.

She leaps back and turns her head, and the lightstaff brushes against her cheek instead of taking her jaw off.

Shmi lands on the floor, doing her best to brush aside the pain, and rolls to a standing position.

“General!”

“Stay back!” She shouts back. She can’t risk any of the clones in this fight – this fight that’s happening because of her, because of the Jedi. The Jedi have contributed to this wrong, the enslavement of the clones; it’s up to the Jedi to fix their own mistakes.

Krell advances; Shmi doesn’t feel steady on her feet, but she has to be. She _has_ to be.

The grenade takes them both by surprise.

A hand grabs her wrist and tugs her backwards, pulling her around a bend in the corridor just as the grenade goes off.

“Don’t just stand there when you see a grenade,” Slick snaps at her. “ _Run_! Idiot general.”

“Well, I am new to the job,” Shmi says weakly. “That won’t have finished him,” she adds. Skimmer and Rano are with Slick; Lockup is nowhere to be seen.

“Then we run some more,” Slick says, and pulls her along.

Shmi doesn’t follow. “I need to stop him,” she says.

“You and what army?” Rano asks. “You, against that much firepower? We need a _better plan_.”

“He’s right,” Slick says, and grimaces. “Ugh.”

“He _is_ right,” says Krell’s voice from behind her, and the clones all back up a step.

Shmi spins and barely catches his blade on hers.

“You have no hope,” Krell growls, his face highlighted by the blue and green glows of their crossed sabers.

“There is _always_ hope,” Shmi says, and is so surprised by herself that she forgets the burning in her cheek.

There _is_ always hope.

She hadn’t thought of it like that.

There’s Anakin, out somewhere on the battlefield, leading a legion – she hasn’t shared her thoughts, but Beru will talk to him, help him see that the clones are slaves. There’s Obi-Wan, who has always stood by her side. Yoda, who is starting to see. Beru, and Boba and Jango, doing what they can against the Sith. Somewhere out in the universe, there is always someone willing to stand up against darkness.

Krell presses down on her, and she presses _back_. With the strength of her certainty, a fulcrum and a place to stand, she can lift _planets_.

“You will fall!” Krell insists, but there’s a sheen of sweat on his face.

“Like hell she will,” Slick growls, and shoots at him.

Krell _roars_ in fury, pulling back from Shmi’s lightsaber to deflect the blast; Shmi thanks the Force that he can’t maneuver enough in the corridor to aim the deflected blast back at Slick.

Slick is aiming again, and Shmi can hear Rano and Skimmer drawing their blasters as well, but she can also feel Krell’s fury building, and building, like a dam about to burst.

“I will not fall to _clones_ ,” Krell spits, turning his burning gaze on them.

“They’re better men than you,” Shmi tells him.

Krell’s rage explodes.

Shmi can feel the force of it, pushing her back; she lets it flow around her, around the clones at her back. The doors rattle, but nothing more; his fury is nothing.

He strikes at her with his staffs, once, twice, not even bothering with finesse. Again, he raises his lightstaffs.

One of them is shot out of his hands. It clatters to the floor, a smoking hole in its side, broken.

Krell turns, and Shmi can see Lockup behind him, blaster raised.

The corridors must circle around, she realizes. Lockup ran around, and snuck up on Krell, and now I have a chance.

She realizes at the same time Krell does that there’s nothing between him and Lockup.

Shmi lunges forwards, but she’s not fast enough. Krell carves a burning line through Lockup’s torso, then another, then another.

“You can’t even protect–” he sneers at her, turning around, and Shmi buries her lightsaber in his side.

He chokes, and stiffens; his remaining lightstaff drops out of his hands.

“All will fall,” he whispers, then dies.

Shmi lets him slump and fall to the floor, turning off her lightsaber, letting silence echo through the corridors that were so loud just seconds ago.

For the first time in days, she lets her tears fall.

 

 

Slick swears, very quietly and very softly. Krell is dead, and Lockup is dead.

General Skywalker just stands there, crying.

But if there’s one thing Slick knows about grief, it’s that you can’t just stew in it. He walks towards the general, pulls her away from Krell’s corpse, guides her back through the hallway.

“I’m sorry, Slick,” she whispers. “I – I’m so–”

“He made his choices,” Slick says, interrupting her. “He knew what he was doing, okay?”

He swore that he was never going to be okay with Jedi sending his brothers off to die, and he’s not. He never will be. Neither will General Skywalker.

“Get her to the medbay,” he tells Skimmer. “Get that burn taken care of, make sure she’s all right.”

Skimmer nods and takes the general’s arm, leading her off.

Slick looks over at Rano. Rano looks back warily.

“I don’t like you,” Slick says bluntly. “But you stood with us. So explain it to me. What’s your deal, black ops?”

Rano sighs. “General Dooku is worried about her. She’s… I don’t know how Jedi really work, but he’s like a big brother to her, as far as he’s said. He wants her safe.”

“Fine,” Slick says. “He’s expecting you to report in on her, yeah?” Before Rano can reply, he continues. “Why don’t you go tell him exactly what the kriff just went down. Then, when General Skywalker’s feeling better, you can explain this all to her, and _she_ can decide what to do. _Tayli’bac_?”

“Clear,” Rano says, meeting his eyes squarely. “What about you? What are you going to be doing, now?”

Slick turns a bit, looking back behind Krell’s corpse, behind Lockup’s.

Commander Lock is standing there, wide-eyed and shaking.

“All right,” Rano says. “… I’ll go call General Dooku.”

He leaves, and then it’s Slick alone in the corridor with Lock and the corpses.

The living first. Then the dead. It’s something Jango had said – not often, but once or twice, to Sarad. Slick and Lockup weren’t supposed to be listening, but they’d snuck out, as they did sometimes–

The living first.

“Lock, right?” Slick asks, and walks over to him. (It probably wouldn’t help to kick Krell’s body on his way past, but that doesn’t mean Slick’s not tempted.)

“Y-yes sir,” Lock says, and tries to salute. “CC-2869.”

Slick shakes his head. “I’m just a sergeant, commander.”

Lock just shrugs.

Slick sits, back against the walls of the corridor, not facing either of the bodies. “Come on,” he says. “Sit down, vod’ika.”

Lock leans against the wall and slides down.

“Don’t – don’t look at the bodies,” Slick says. “Look over here. Look at me, okay?” Kriff, _Slick_ can barely stand to not look at the bodies, to not look at Lockup, the black burns cut through his armor–

It takes a few seconds, but Lock looks.

Lock doesn’t need words about the dead, or about how the living matter more. Lock needs… who Lock needs is Sarad, really, but Slick will have to do.

“You never got to spend much time with Sarad, did you,” Slick says. “She would tell you the truth, about us. We’re people. Not things, not cannon fodder, not something to be thrown away or wasted. We deserve our own lives, you know? No matter what that hut’uun frogface thinks.”

Lock curls up a little more. “We’re not,” he says quietly.

“We are,” Slick says, quiet and furious. “If we’re all supposed to be the same, we wouldn’t be disagreeing, would we?”

“Maybe we’re all just broken,” Lock says.

“Do you _feel_ broken?” Slick demands.

“Yes,” Lock says.

Slick stops. “Well,” he says, then pauses again. “You’re not.”

Lock just shrugs.

“Look,” Slick says, struggling for words. He’s always gotten angry, not gotten sad; he’s never been the type of brother to curl up in a corner and not fight. “Krell – you saw him attack General Skywalker. You saw him break all the rules and regulations, all that stuff. So it makes sense that he was wrong about other things, too?”

“I guess,” Lock says.

“What he did was _wrong_ ,” Slick says. It burns him, how that hut’uun piece of _trash_ treated Slick’s brothers. Made them into… this.

Lock shakes his head. “He attacked General Skywalker, and I didn’t _do_ anything. Maybe he was wrong, but I’m wrong, too.”

“You’re not wrong,” says a new voice.

Slick looks up to see General Skywalker, a bandage over her face where Krell had cut her, Rano and Skimmer trailing behind her apologetically.

“You should be in the medbay,” Slick says.

“I was. We got some transmissions, and one of them needs to be addressed soon,” General Skywalker says, which explains why Rano isn’t still talking to Dooku. “But…” She glances around the corridor, at the corpses that need to be moved – Lockup deserves to be laid out, Slick thinks. He’s not really sure what they’re supposed to do with bodies, but they need to do _something_.

Then General Skywalker gathers up her skirt and sits on the floor, right in front of Slick and Lock.

“You did do something,” she tells Lock. “Surviving is something. There’s no shame in that.”

Lock blinks at her, shock in his face. “But–”

“If you can’t take it from one of your brothers,” she says, interrupting gently, “Then take it from a general. What Krell did – the way he treated you – was wrong. You’re all individuals, all _people_. Do you know about the Force?” At their nods, she continues. “Every person, every being glows in the Force, like starlight. And every one of those beings glows differently, uniquely, the way that no two people are precisely the same, no matter how similar they may seem. All of you burn so brightly, so differently, and it’s beautiful, the way you all shine.”

They’ve heard about the Force, yes, Slick thinks – but never like _that_. The words echo in the corridor for a moment, building images in their minds, circling around like the stars General Skywalker had invoked.

Then, Lock speaks up. “Are you going to be our new general?”

Slick’s first instinct is to say _of course not_. General Skywalker’s a general, sure, but she’s not the type to lead a battalion. She’d tear herself apart trying to take care of all the soldiers, and she’d mourn so deeply every time someone died–

But something is wrong. Slick can feel it in his gut, can read it in Skimmer’s face and the tension of General Skywalker’s hands.

“I don’t know,” she says. “But I need your help – both of you – in making a decision.”

“What decision,” Slick asks.

She takes a deep breath, inhaling slowly and exhaling slowly, like she’s trying not to panic herself. “We received a transmission from General Ki-Adi-Mundi, just before his ship was destroyed,” she says. “There are the remainders of two legions stationed on Hypori that were due to receive reinforcements. The reinforcements were shot down as they entered the system by new anti-spacecraft canons. The rumor is that there’s a new droid general, one whose specialty is killing Jedi.” She takes a deep breath. “We’re positioned close enough to a hyperspace lane that we could get to Hypori faster than almost anyone else.”

“General,” Rano says, sounding like he’s prodding her to tell them the rest.

She closes her eyes. “That piece of information is irrelevant for now, Skimmer. Lock – I won’t take your legion into battle if they do not want to go, but there is a chance we’ll be able to save lives. I can’t – I don’t know if that can outweigh–”

She’s worried that if she actually becomes the general they’ve called her, she’ll become one of the bad generals, Slick realizes.

Rano shakes his head. “General, your–”

“I _can’t_ let that be part of this decision, Rano!” General Skywalker says, and closes her eys, taking those deep breaths. “I won’t drag unwilling people into combat.”

“We–” Lock looks down the corridor, at Krell’s body, at Lockup’s. “We’ve already seen combat, General. We’re meant to save lives, aren’t we?”

“General Skywalker’s son is one of the Jedi trapped on Hypori,” Skimmer announces.

They’re all silent for a moment.

“You,” Slick announces. “Are an _idiot_ , General. Like we wouldn’t go save your family, too.”

General Skywalker curls up a bit, her arms hugging her knees. “I do _not_ want you or your brothers to die because of my decisions,” she says.

“We won’t,” Slick says. “Lockup didn’t…” his throat closes for a minute. “Lockup didn’t die because of your decisions. He died because Krell was an enemy.”

He can hear Lock taking a deep breath beside him. “If we’re supposed to be making our own decisions,” he says, “We can make the decision to go save those other legions, and their Jedi too. Right?”

“Of course,” General Skywalker says, and smiles, a little weak, a little watery, but there.

Slick isn’t going to say he’s happy about the 144th going into combat, but he’s not happy about any of his brothers going into combat. He is _definitely_ not happy about General Skywalker going into combat, and there’s no way she’ll stay out of combat when clones are risking their lives.

He meets Rano’s eyes, and sees his own expression mirrored there. They’re going to have their work cut out for them, keeping their general out of trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I lied about there being three chapters. That's because this whole mess of a chapter was supposed to wrap up all the other cliffhangery bits I've got going on in this fic, and suddenly it was 8k and I hadn't even wrapped up Krell yet. Oops.
> 
> That absolutely _wonderful_ image up there is from [Poplitealqueen!](http://poplitealqueen.tumblr.com) It's so beautiful, I just want to stare at it for hours. It really helped me get the latter half of this chapter actually written.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so the war moves on.

It’s quiet on Hypori, save for the echo of lightsabers clashing.

Slick can hear them, even from this distance – it speaks volumes to how quiet the droid army is, how quiet his brothers are being.

He refocuses, and the army comes into view, surrounded by fallen bodies, splashes of blood, and yellow dirt. Their fortifications are half-falling apart; of course, they’ve been pieced together from fallen ships and debris. It’s a shock they’ve held out this long.

A crash comes from inside the fallen star destroyer at the center of their fortifications.

“Why haven’t the troopers gone to help their Jedi?” Rano asks quietly.

Slick scans the horizon, mentally counting. It’s nice being the only one with binoculars. “The 73rd and the 409th together barely have enough men left to hold the lines,” he says. “If the droids start advancing, they’ll only be able to hold for a few minutes – they can’t risk losing more troopers, not if they want to keep their Jedi alive after they fight Grievous.”

“There are dozens of wounded,” General Skywalker says, scanning the battlefield – though Slick’s not sure how she can see that far without her own pair of binoculars. “Will we be able to airlift all of them out?”

“We should,” Slick says. “All we need to do is survive ‘till they’re safe, then we can get the hell out of this system.”

General Skywalker frowns. “That’s not going to be as easy as it sounds,” she says. “With the air controlled by the droids…”

“We’ll just get out the same way we came in,” Slick says. “That _should_ work.”

“Unless we take too long getting everyone evac’ed,” Rano points out, sounding far too reasonable. “They’ll have time to trace our path and block it.”

Slick grimaces. “Fine. You have any ideas?”

“Yes,” Rano says.

“Fine,” Slick snaps. “What?”

Rano shrugs, then turns his gaze back to the battlefield.

Slick growls, then takes a deep breath. No fighting with your brothers on a battlefield, unless you wanted everyone to get dead fast.

“General!”

The three of them turn to the sound of the noise – it’s Gael, one of the scouts they’ve brought on this mission.

“What did you find out?” General Skywalker says.

Gael shakes his head. “Those cannons are fully recharged,” he says. “They won’t be able to hit anything on the other side of the planet, but if our ship hovers over the battlefield for more than a few seconds, we’re toast.”

General Skywalker grimaces. “All right. How well are they guarded?”

“Not very,” Gael says. “I got pretty close.”

“They’re probably relying on the army to protect them,” Slick says, and grins, a little viciously. “They’re not expecting anyone to sneak up from behind.”

“It’s unlikely that they even know that General Mundi got a message out,” General Skywalker points out. “They don’t think that anyone is coming to help.”

“It’ll be a piece of cake to take care of those cannons,” Slick says.

Rano hums a bit, a tiny grin on his face.

Slick sighs. “Now what?”

“Well,” Rano says. “We’ve got two problems with that evac: we’ve got the cannons, and we’ve got their space forces.” Then he pauses.

“And?” General Skywalker says. “I appreciate the sense of the dramatic, but we are in a bit of a rush, here.”

“Sorry, sir,” Rano says, and Slick can see a little grimace on her face when she’s called _sir_. “We can take control of the cannons, destroy the space forces, and be here as long as we want.”

“Damn,” Slick says, and glares at Rano. “That’s brilliant.”

“Do we have enough troops to take control of the cannons?” General Skywalker asks. “There are seventeen cannons – this is a scouting mission. We’ve only brought sixteen people here, and that’s including Skimmer – he needs to stay with the ship.”

Rano glances at Gael. “Do we know how they’re controlled?”

“There are external stations about halfway up the base,” Gael pipes up. “With one droid stationed to each of them.”

“We can manage that, then,” Rano says, sounding more confident than Slick feels about this plan. “Moving in groups of two, we take out the droids manning the cannons, then reprogram them to fire at the droids’ own ships. We won’t be able to take out all of them at once, but we can plant charges on half of them so we won’t have to deal with them.”

General Skywalker thinks for a few moments, then nods. “All right. I’ll pass the message along, and warn Skimmer to get out of here if things go badly. Rano, go with Gael; Slick, you’ll be with me.”

The three of them salute.

“Um,” General Skywalker says. “… yes. You can go do that now.”

Slick makes his way down the thin dirt road – really, it’s barely a path – that they’d used to get up to the outcropping, General Skywalker quiet behind him; but she’s quiet in a way that means she wants to talk.

“Do you think it’ll work?” he asks, then winces. Probably not the best thing to bring up, with her son’s life on the line. “We can make it work,” he amends. “We give it our best try, and we succeed, and it’s gonna be great.”

“Of course,” she says, like she doesn’t believe it and knows that he doesn’t really, either. Then she sighs. “There is no try. There is only do, or do not.”

“That a Jedi saying?” Slick asks – he’s certainly never heard anything like it before.

“It is,” General Skywalker says. “My teacher and I debated it quite a bit, when I was learning; we still do, every so often, but we’ve come to find a balance.”

His general follows Slick as he ducks behind a funnily-shaped rock and peers up at the nearest cannon. It’s just like Gael said – barely guarded from the back. Slick could probably take the droids out himself, but much as it pains him to admit it Rano is right, travelling in groups of two is much safer than groups of one.

“Ideally,” General Skywalker murmurs, “We’ll be able to take over our first cannon stealthily and program it to attack the ships in orbit before the rest of the army notices our presence.”

“Then we’ll fight our way towards the second one and do the same?” Slick says. “Heh. Sounds like fun.”

General Skywalker raises an eyebrow. “You have a strange sense of _fun_.”

“I have a _mandalorian_ sense of fun,” Slick corrects, and the general tilts her head in acknowledgement.

There are a few moments of silence – they need to wait for the other groups to get into position, of course; no sense launching a surprise attack if someone else spoils the surprise.

Then General Skywalker speaks. “What if I am sending all of you off to your deaths, though?”

Slick wants to bang his head against a rock. This is _way_ too much philosophy for him. “Look,” he says. “This is a war. Some of us are are going to die. But if we don’t go rescue them, they’re _definitely_ going to die. We can plan this out, go through all the possible angles of attack, do what we can to keep as many brothers alive as possible. But eventually…” he grins. “Eventually, it’s gotta be _do_ or _do not_ , right?”

General Skywalker stares at him for a long, long moment, then sits down, her back to the rock they’re hiding behind, and laughs.

It’s a quiet laugh, of course – they’re hiding on a battlefield. But he can see it shaking through her whole body.

“All right,” she says. “Let’s _do_ , then, and save everyone.”

Slick raises an eyebrow. “Everyone?” he asks.

General Skywalker grins at him, and it makes her look so much _lighter_. “Everyone,” she says.

Slick snorts. Of course he’d end up with a crazy general – though to be fair, today has been a crazy day.

Their comms beep at the same time, and General Skywalker answers hers; it’s Skimmer.

“The other troopers have been notified, and split up into groups,” he says. “I’ll let you know when they’re in position. This is a crazy plan, General. Good luck.”

“Thank you,” she says. “Is our ship capable of monitoring how much of their space fleet remains?”

Slick hears Skimmer snort. “Definitely,” he says. “Is there anything these ships can’t do? No, don’t answer that, sir.”

“Let us know when we’ve cleared enough for the 144th to make a safe entrance,” she says.

“Yes, sir,” Skimmer says, and this time General Skywalker doesn’t flinch at the honorific.

 

* * *

 

When the cannons go off, they nearly blind Shmi, arcing through they sky in bright bursts of plasma to cut through battleships and starfighters.

She probably wouldn’t be thinking this if she weren’t blinking spots out of her eyes, but - there’s a very distinct sound to an entire droid army realizing that someone has snuck up behind them and stolen their cannons. It’s not the kind of sound, Shmi thinks, that you want to be the cause of.

“Blast them!” A droid shrieks, and then they’re getting fired upon, hundreds of streams of red blaster fire shooting straight towards them.

Slick grabs her by the arm and drags her behind the cannon’s control deck. “Now what?” he growls. “Did we not think up a plan behind _fire off the cannons, hope to not get killed_?”

Shmi replies by pulling out her long-range communicator and turning it on. A tiny hologram flickers into being - a clone commander.

“Commander Lock,” Shmi says. “You’re clear to make the jump.”

“Yes, sir,” Lock says, and disconnects.

Lock is scared of her, a little bit - Shmi can feel it, when the commander stands tall and faces her calmly and salutes; she hates Krell a little more every time that happens. But for all his fear, Lock still follows her commands, and is still coming to help her save lives; Shmi doesn’t know - no. She knows exactly how he stands so strong, even after all he’s been through, even with that fear in his heart.

“Hey! A Jedi!”

But this is a battlefield, not the time to think about these men who are going to be following her commands. Shmi lunges, bringing her lightsaber up and slicing cleanly through two battle droids.

“I guess we’re joining the party, then,” Slick mutters, and jumps out after her, putting his back to hers. His blaster goes off as frequently as the droids’ blasters, and seems to be much more accurate, too.

Shmi, unfortunately, can’t say the same. She can deflect a blaster bolt, but not really in any direction other than _away_ , unless she gets lucky or is able to concentrate, and there isn’t much concentration to be had in this writhing mess of droids.

“Surrender,” a battle droid intones. “So that you may be taken to General Grievous, and destroyed.”

Shmi responds to this by slicing through the droid’s arm, then its body; then the body of the one behind it.

It’s just like makashi, except without the other lightsaber, she thinks - as if the whole point of makashi isn’t for there to be another lightsaber to face. Still, thinking like that helps her not get shot.

“This isn’t working,” Slick says behind her. “We’re not going to last much longer without backup, and there’s no way any of the other groups are doing better.”

“Let’s hope backup gets here soon, then,” Shmi says.

As soon as the words leave her mouth, there’s a muted _boom_ from above the battlefield - as one, they and the droid army turns and looks at the sky.

“You know,” Slick comments, “That sounded a lot like a ship hitting the atmosphere.”

“You’re the one with the binoculars,” Shmi reminds him, but a few seconds later there’s no need for binoculars.

A republic star destroyer descends through the sky, transports streaming out of it; some descend towards the 409th’s fortifications, and some fly over the droid army, dropping grenades or shooting lasers; most of their ships are on transport duty, though, landing around the 409th’s and 73rd’s fortified area and getting the wounded back up to the star destroyer, and to safety.

One gunship, though, lands with a _thump_ on top of the group of droids Shmi and Slick were about to fight, and opens up to reveal clones painted in the dark green of the 144th.

“Captain Luna, sir!” says the captain, and salutes. “Commander Lock says you need to get to that crashed star destroyer in the middle, sir.”

“I do,” Shmi says, and picks up her communicator. “Rano, Skimmer,” she says into it. “Have all the teams head back to Skimmer’s transport and help with the evac.”

She hears a faint “Yes, sir” before she turns the comm off and steps into the transport.

Slick follows her.

“I don’t want any of you coming with me, when I go to fight him,” she tells them.

“Of course you don’t,” Slick says.

Shmi narrows her eyes at him. “Whatever else he has, we know this is a fight with lightsabers,” she says. “It would be very dangerous for anyone without a defense against him.”

“I’m sure it would,” Slick says.

Captain Luna is looking back and forth between the two of them.

“Of course,” Slick continues, “It would be practically _suicide_ for any Jedi to go in there alone.”

Shmi sighs. “I won’t be alone,” she says. “There are six other Jedi in there, and I’ll just be helping; it’ll be much safer than you make it sound.”

“Really,” Slick says flatly. “Because I thought there were supposed to be _nine_ Jedi.”

“I-“ Shmi says, and pauses. And swallows. “I can only feel six.” Please, she thinks - she’s not sure to what, to the Force or to the winds of the desert or to the Jedi in the fallen star destroyer, fighting Grievous. Please, let one of those six be Siri. She knows Anakin is still alive - or rather, she knows that she’d feel it if her son died. But Siri… with Siri she can only hope, and that’s somehow worse.

“All right,” Slick says. “No way in _hell_ you’re going in there alone against someone that’s killed three Jedi in the past half-hour.”

“And what, you think he’ll have more trouble killing you?” Shmi snaps.

“Well, he’ll have a much harder time killing an entire gunship,” Captain Luna says.

Shmi and Slick both turn to face the captain.

“What? It’s a much better idea than ‘go in alone, die in single combat,’” the captain says. “And General Skywalker won’t be worrying about us facing a Jedi-killer, and Major Slick won’t be worrying about _her_ facing a Jedi-killer.”

“That…” Shmi takes a deep breath. “That sounds reasonable.”

“Yeah, you can say that again,” Slick says, and snorts. “You’re cheeky, for a brother who was stuck under Krell,” he says. “How’d you manage that?”

“To answer both your questions,” Captain Luna says, “It’s not brother. It’s _sister_ . Now, brace for entry!” she calls, and there’s a _bang_ as the transport flies through half-destroyed walls.

Shmi can feel the other Jedi drawing nearer, can hear the clash of lightsabers and feel… fear, anger. Determination.

Shmi sees four lightsabers, whirling in tight circles, and Aayla Secura backed up against a wall. She draws her lightsaber, goes to step out of the gunship–

“Wait,” Slick says, and grabs her arm. “Give us _some_ credit.”

Grievous turns and sees them, giving Aayla a chance to dodge out from behind him.

“Field clear!” Captain Luna calls. “ _Fire!_ ”

 

* * *

 

If there’s one thing Siri is glad for, it’s that Jinx had made her sleep. She’s pretty certain of this, because trying to fight Grievous while pushing past that lack of sleep would have been absolute hell.

Actually, that’s not a good measurement; it’s absolute hell anyways.

Siri isn’t thinking - she is decidedly _not_ thinking about how she can’t feel Tarr Seir any more in the Force, how she can feel Master Barrek fading away. She’s not thinking about how she had urged them to fight, how she had urged them to face Grievous, because if she does think about that, then she–

She ducks and spins and brings her lightsaber up to Grievous just barely in time, and her dark blue lightsaber meets one of his, a shade of green that’s almost yellow.

K’kruhk leaps up behind Grievous, swinging his lightsaber down, only to be blocked by two of Grievous’s sabers, crossed together; K’kruhk pushes off of the lightsabers with his own, kicking at Grievous then spinning over him to land adjacent to Siri. For a moment - not even that - Siri hopes that K’kruhk’s kick has put Grievous off-balance; a whiphid’s kick to the face is nothing to frown at. But Grievous doesn’t even stumble.

Aayla lunges toward Grievous, but she’s blocked by his last saber, one that matches the blue of her skin almost eerily.

They exchange a few blows, blocking and striking and being blocked; Siri holds her lightsaber tightly and wishes she knew who trained him so well that he could match - will soon overcome - three Jedi attacking from three different angles.

Master Barrek passes into the Force, a few meters away; Ki-Adi-Mundi had been trying to heal him, but none of the Jedi stranded on Hypori had been particularly skilled at healing. Siri doesn’t have time to wonder if the others are regretting that as much as she is, though, because Ki-Adi-Mundi charges toward Grievous, swinging his lightsaber out for a powerful strike where the cyborg is undefended.

Grievous just leans back, blocks Master Mundi’s strike, and kicks K’kruhk in the face.

Siri can hear his neck _snap_ , as Grievous’s clawed foot tosses the Jedi Master off into a pile of debris.

“Poor little Jedi,” Grievous says. “How quickly your ranks are depleted. Who will be next?”

Whoever it was that designed the cyborg’s voicebox, Siri wants to punch them in the _face_. Nobody needs to have a laugh that creepy.

Even the cyborg stopping and taking a moment to laugh doesn’t give them enough of an opening to attack; he curls into himself as his body shakes, and they all charge forwards, but he springs up a fraction of a second later, his whirling blades forcing them to retreat.

Pounding footsteps to the side, echoing loudly off the star destroyer’s debris - Anakin and Shaak Ti come around a corner, their lightsabers lit.

“Sha’a?” Master Mundi calls to them.

“He’ll live,” Shaak Ti shouts back, and strikes at Grievous. Siri hears something burn, and hopes for half a second that Shaak Ti had managed a direct hit - but no. Grievous’s cloak has been half-burned away, but the general himself is unharmed.

“What a pity,” Grievous growls. “For all that the padawan was a weakling, I was looking forwards to adding his lightsaber to my collection!”

Siri’s eyes flicker down to his belt, and she sees lightsabers. How many Jedi has he killed?

Too many. More, now, because she urged them to fight–

All it takes is a split second of distraction.

Two of Grievous’s stolen lightsabers slash out at her, and she block - but her stance is off, she’s unbalanced. The burning lines of green-yellow and blue arc closer and closer; Siri tries to shove them away with the Force.

She hits the wall of the star destroyer with a _clang_ , then slumps to the floor, the impact echoing through her mind. Distantly, she thinks, oh - push when you’re off-balance, and you’ll end up pushing yourself.

Siri tries to lever herself up, but her head spins. Deep breaths, she reminds herself - she’s been concussed before, and she doesn’t feel concussed now; she just needs to let her head settle.

She turns her head to one side, looks over at a hole in the star destroyer, lets her eyes focus on the open sky; she turns her head the other way, and sees K’kruhk.

His face is… the best word Siri can think of is _crushed_. His neck is twisted at an angle, one that’s clearly not natural; she swallows, her throat a little bit too dry.

Even if she hadn’t urged everyone to fight him, she reminds herself, he would be here, doing his best to kill them all. Tarr Seir, Master Barrek, K’kruhk - they wouldn’t necessarily be alive even if she hadn’t urged them to fight Grievous.

Footsteps clank on dusty ground; now that she can focus a little better, she realizes that Grievous - the entire group, Grievous and Jedi and spinning blades of light - is moving towards her. Grievous wants to finish her off; she’s an easy target, stunned and on the ground, and the others can’t keep Grievous from advancing, step by step.

Siri glances over at K’kruhk once more and grimaces. Can’t let myself forget his legs, she thinks. Ignoring a cyborg’s legs is…

… Dangerous.

Siri grins to herself, though she bets that if anyone saw it they’d call it less a ‘grin’ and more a ‘snarl.’ Grievous is still moving toward her, and she’s stunned and dizzy from smacking into the wall but that doesn’t mean she’s an easy target.

She takes a deep breath and calms herself - she’s going to need to concentrate for this. It’s very, very hard to speak to someone’s mind when you don’t have any sort of bond, but Siri has always been determined.

_Anakin_ , she says, as loudly as she can (mentally). _Hey, Skywalker. Don’t panic. Remember that thing you told me not to do?_

She gets a vague sense of negation from him; whether that’s him denying that she’s trying to talk to him or him saying _no_ to her question, she’s not sure. Whatever; they’re running out of time, and she’s going to go ahead with her plan whether they have a warning or not.

Skywalker had told her not to do a few things, actually: try to avoid ferromagnets, try not to get electrocuted. Don’t try to rewire her legs herself, even if they broke, just in case she touched _these two specific_ wires together and made the leg explode.

Siri has never been good with mechanics. She’s never really been good with detail work in the Force. But she knows which two wires she’s not supposed to let touch, and she can reach down and grab them in shaky Force fingers. Obviously, she’s going to want to try kicking him first; a good kick from metal legs might be able to solve a lot of their problems. But just in case one or both of her legs gets detached… well, it’s nice to have a plan.

Grievous’s footsteps clank closer to her, and she rolls over, making herself look less together than she actually is, and catching her first glimpse of the fight in a while.

Ki-Adi-Mundi has a slight burn down the side of his face, and Skywalker has some scratches on his left arm that have almost detached one of his sleeves; other than that, though, they look mostly unharmed. Shaak Ti’s lightsaber is caught on one of Grievous’s; Ki-Adi-Mundi’s is caught on a second, and he’s holding both Anakin and Aayla with a third.

His fourth, that blue one the same color as Aayla, he raises slowly, vertically, its blade pointed down - straight at Siri.

“And now there are five,” Grievous says, his voice harsh and smug, and strikes downwards.

When Siri blocks his lightsaber is the first time he deigns to look down at her. Stupid of him to not pay attention to a live Jedi, even a temporarily downed one - but she’ll take stupid over clever any day.

Siri grins up at him. It’s not her nice grin. “Not quite yet,” she says, and springs to her feet, pushing his saber up and around, and for half a second his lower torso is undefended; she doesn’t stop moving. Her leg swings up and around and she kicks him solidly in the chest with her own cyborg leg.

He stumbles back, put off-balance for the first time in the entire battle; all five Jedi know that now is the time to press their advantage, and they do so, attacking as hard as they ever had.

But Grievous _leaps_ \- and they could follow him, Force-jumping up to the ceiling, but they couldn’t cling there the way he can with his claws; he has the advantage again. Shaak Ti swears quietly, making Aayla and Skywalker look at her in surprise.

“We need a _strategy_ ,” Ki-Adi-Mundi says, tension and frustration threading through his normally Jedi-calm voice.

“We don’t have time to _devise_ a strategy, not with him standing up there waiting to drop down on us–” Shaak Ti snaps back, and of course that’s when Grievous decides to drop down on them.

None of them are crushed, not like Tarr Seir had been - but now they’re back to that stalemate of blocking and attacking and being blocked, Grievous’s defense unassailable.

It’s not a stalemate, really. They all know it - Grievous, with all his enhancements, won’t tire, and Siri can feel her arms straining, her blood pounding, a bruise forming on her back where she’d hit that wall.

They need to end this _now_.

She won’t be able to fight, not with only one leg; she’ll need to find a solid hiding space, like that convenient pile of rubble over there. She can get behind it while Grievous is distracted. Hopefully.

“Nobody panic,” she announces, and there’s a brief pause as everyone turns to stare at her.

“… About what?” Skywalker asks, his blade crossed with Grievous’s yellow-green one.

Siri replies by kicking at Grievous again, a solid sweep that would connect with his head.

“Fool,” Grievous growls - his voice is creakier than it was before. Almost as if someone had kicked him in the chest.

He swipes a lightsaber up, and slices through her knee. There’s a brief jumble of feedback in her head as the prosthetic’s signal cuts out; but lightsabers cut cleanly, and the lower half of her leg smacks Grievous directly in the face.

Siri squeezes together those two wires and pushes herself backwards, towards the pile of rubble; the explosion’s momentum carries her the rest of the way, and for the second time in under an hour she hits the ground - this time with enough force to black out.

Her last thought, before everything goes dark, is that maybe this was taking ‘having fun kicking things’ a little too far.

 

* * *

 

If there’s one thing that Slick wasn’t expecting, it would be ‘Grievous running away at the first hint of blaster fire,’ but expected or not, that’s what happens.

It’s too close-quarters to use the ship’s guns, but that’s no problem - every member of the squad had pulled out a weapon the moment Captain Luna had warned them to brace for impact. Luna herself is carrying a standard blaster, but two troopers are carrying some reasonably heavy-duty laser cannons, which Slick can’t help but grin at the sight of.

His own blaster is easily drawable, but he doesn’t pull it out yet - he’s going to need to keep General Skywalker from charging in, lightsaber drawn, and he does.

“Wait,” Slick says, and grabs her arm, just as the cyborg turns to face the ship - and now that Slick’s gotten a good look at him, he’s worried. He’s seen the way Jedi can deflect blaster bolts, and with that many lightsabers… But that’s not going to be any more deadly than the general fighting him one-on-one. “Give us _some_ credit,” he says, and Luna gives the order to fire.

And Grievous just… _runs_.

“Secure the perimeter,” Luna calls, then turns to her communicator. “Grievous fled when we fired on him - not sure why. Be on the lookout!”

“Yes, sir,” the other troopers call out as Slick follows General Skywalker off the transport and towards a twi’lek Jedi - probably General Secura.

“I’m all right,” General Secura is reassuring General Skywalker. “Anakin is… well, not unhurt, but he’ll be all right. He got Siri out of here after she fell unconscious.”

Slick can almost feel General Skywalker relax. “They’re all right,” she says quietly. “And you are. And…?” The question trails off, not particularly wanting to be answered but needing to be.

“Masters Barrek and K’kruhk have fallen, along with Knight Seir,” General Secura says quietly. “Padawan Gi is badly injured, but unless something else has befallen him, he will live.”

“We were unprepared,” says a quiet voice from the corner, and Slick has his gun drawn - though not pointed at the source - before he realizes that there’s no way it could be Grievous or a droid. “Whoever trained him trained him specifically to kill Jedi.”

A togruta Jedi picks herself up from a pile of rubble, brushing off her montrals and lekku; there’s a solid layer of dust obscuring the left half of her face-markings. This is probably General Ti.

“You’re sure?” General Secura asks. “He fought… very well, but specifically to kill Jedi?”

“He waited until your troops were decimated before he moved in on you,” Slick points out, and the Jedi turn to him, looking almost surprised - looks like only General Skywalker had remembered that he was there, he thinks, a little bitterly. But only a little. He clears his throat, and speaks again. “He set up a situation where he wouldn’t have to fight in any ranged combat, only saber-on-saber melee; he fled the moment we arrived with our blasters. There’s not much else that points to, is there?” He glares at them, just for good measure.

“I suppose not,” General Secura says, and looks down. Then up again, suddenly. “Master Mundi–”

“Here,” says a creaky voice from… the ceiling, of all places.

Slick looks up, blinks, and glances over at General Skywalker. “Is there a reason there’s a Jedi General hanging from the ceiling?”

“I was planning an ambush,” the General - General Mundi - says, rather irritably.

“Of course you were,” General Skywalker says, and sighs. “We’ll need to go over his skills, his attacks, all of that in detail - but later. There’s still a war to fight.”

General Mundi drops to the floor, landing far more lightly than he should have. “There is. You brought…” he glances over the troopers scouting through the wreckage, on a lookout for Grievous. “Whose battalion?”

General Skywalker glances over at Slick; he meets her eyes. For all their insistence on following her, she’s still unsure - or maybe unwilling to overstep their boundaries, and not sure where those boundaries are. Either way, he gives her a small nod.

She takes a deep breath. “Mine,” she says.

“… Yours,” General Ti says, a strange tone in her voice. “You wanted to inspect many battalions. Something went wrong.”

“It did,” she says, and leaves it at that. “Now, we’re evacuating; this battle may not be over, but it’s not winnable, not with the kind of numbers we have.”

“A full battalion–” General Mundi begins.

“Is not nearly enough to fight back the masses of droids that have gathered,” General Secura interrupts him, then blushes purple. “Two, perhaps - but not one, even at full strength.”

General Mundi sighs and nods. “The day is lost, then. Is there any chance of defeating Grievous, now that we know he might be vulnerable to ranged attacks?”

“Generals!”

Slick turns, and it’s Captain Luna, her blaster holstered.

“No sign of Grievous in here,” she reports. “And Push squadron reported seeing a weird-looking droid - it might have been a broken battledroid, it might have been Grievous. It was headed away from your fortifications, into the droid army.”

“Where we won’t be able to follow, not without more troops,” General Mundi grumbles. “Let us retreat, then.”

“Let us,” General Skywalker says, mimicking his tone - to Slick, it sounds a little bit like she’s mocking him, a goal that Slick can definitely get behind; General Mundi sounds very uptight.

“Wait,” General Ti says, and frowns.

General Skywalker matches her frown. “What is it, Shaak?”

“Something is wrong,” she says.

General Skywalker nods once, like this is normal. Well, it probably is for Jedi. “Do you know what?”

General Ti shakes her head, and brushes off some of the dirt on her face. “Just… something.”

“Too many things have already gone wrong today,” General Mundi says, clutching his unlit lightsaber tightly.

Slick has been thinking, since he met General Skywalker, that maybe Jedi aren’t actually so awful. Maybe they just sounded awful, from how the kaminoans had taught them, but maybe Jedi were really helping the galaxy - look at General Skywalker, after all.

But now, meeting these other Jedi? They are _idiots_ . They know that something’s wrong - probably something big, from the way they’re all talking about it. They’re not doing anything about it, though, they’re just standing around _talking_.

“We need to support the troops, in that case,” General Skywalker says, taking over the discussion. “If something is likely to go wrong, we must do all we can to prevent things from going wrong.”

“Of course,” General Ti agrees calmly. “Knight Secura - go assist Padawan Skywalker in defending the wounded.”

General Secura bites her lip, then shakes her head. “We want as many Jedi on the front lines as possible,” she says. “That’s where the heaviest combat will be, where the droid army is advancing. They’ll need all the help they can get.”

General Skywalker rests a hand on General Secura’s shoulder. “Very well,” she says quietly, then raises her voice to address Captain Luna. “Captain - where are we most needed?”

Luna raises her hand to her comm for a second, then lowers it. “Tumble Squadron is barely holding the north-eastern corner,” she says. “And the fortifications around the south are crumbling.”

“Knight Secura,” General Ti says. “Would you join me in the north-eastern corner?”

“Gladly, Master Ti,” General Secura replies.

“That leaves us with the south,” General Mundi says, nodding at General Skywalker.

General Skywalker’s eyes only flicker in the direction of the infirmary for a moment. “Then let’s go,” she says.

Captain Luna glances at Slick; oh, right, she’d called him _major_. That means that he’s… in command of a ridiculous number of brothers. … And sister. Sisters? That’s something to worry about later, he reminds himself sharply.

“We can’t spare any squads from evacuating or holding the perimeter, can we?” he asks her quietly, and she shakes her head. “All right. Send three troopers with each group, make sure they all have comms.”

“Live updates,” Captain Luna says, and nods, beckoning some troopers over.. “You’ll get Mess, Ivo, and Undo. Good luck.”

Mess, Ivo, and Undo all salute in unison; Slick grimaces under his helmet and realizes that he doesn’t want to know how aggressively Krell trained them, so that the could salute like that in the middle of a battlefield.

“Do your best to keep the Jedi alive,” he orders them curtly. “But don’t get killed. One of you, stay back and make sure your comm is live - there’s a chance that Grievous is still lurking around somewhere, and we’re going to need to know if that happens.”

“Yes, sir,” they say, again in unison. It’s… honestly sort of creepy - he might be starting to understand why General Skywalker doesn’t like it very much.

He has to jog to catch up to her, after that; she’s already on her way out of the star destroyer. General Mundi is trailing behind her, and Slick passes him without a sideways glance.

“He’s going to be fine,” Slick says, after a few seconds of walking; they’re almost out into the open, and the sounds of battle are much louder from here.

General Skywalker misses a step. “And here I thought I was being subtle about it,” she says.

Slick shrugs. “You probably were.” He waits a beat, waits for them to come out into Hypori’s light, then says, “I sort of want to punch General Mundi in the face.”

General Skywalker stares at him for a moment, then stifles a laugh. “I must admit, I understand why,” she says. “He is very traditional; he is highly skilled at combat, though, and a dedicated and loyal leader.”

“Sure,” Slick says, and shakes his head. He’ll believe it if he sees it. Maybe.

Hypori’s sun is high in the sky, just barely starting to sink; there are hardly any shadows out here, where inside, under the crashed star destroyer, there was practically nothing _but_ shadows. It’s a bit of an adjustment.

Finally, they come into reach of the southern fortifications, which are doing pretty badly, just as Luna had reported; there are holes the size of starfighters, and droids keep pouring through. The 409th, supplemented by the 144th, is holding the gaps - but it’s a close thing.

General Skywalker ignites her lightsaber and dives into the combat, General Mundi sprinting after her; Slick rolls his eyes and follows.

 

* * *

 

The battle is chaotic - droid parts and actual droids flying to and fro, the air choked with dust and lasers. There are enemies all around - not the ideal conditions for makashi.

“A good opportunity to practice your soresu,” Ki-Adi-Mundi yells towards Shmi.

Shmi grimaces. Makashi is perfectly good for disarming droids, as long as she can avoid getting shot.

That thought tickles something in the back of her brain, and she pauses for a second; then Slick growls at her to _focus on not getting killed_ , so she sets the thought aside and focuses on not getting killed.

Admittedly, soresu would be far more helpful here; it’s a form for defense, and the defense of the clones and the fortifications is what Shmi is attempting to accomplish. But there’s no use in crying over spilled water; she knows makashi best, so makashi is what she uses. Besides, after all the times Ki-Adi-Mundi has clashed with her in the council, his traditionalism and her… well, her, she’s not the most inclined to listen to him, especially over ideas that aren’t the best in the first place.

Shmi disarms a battle droid, then another, then Force-pushes a rock through a droideka’s shield and into its wiring; the droid shakes and sputters. She pauses, presses it into its rolling form, and sets it rolling through the ranks of droids; when it explodes, it takes out four more.

Then she remembers that she needs to be watching her back. A droid will sneak up from behind her, and–

“I’ve got your back,” Slick reminds her, and shoots two battledroids in the head. “Go do your Jedi thing. Don’t get too far ahead of me, though, or you’ll be in real trouble.”

“Strangely, I get the sense that we’ll be in real trouble no matter what,” she says, looking over the lines and lines of droids.

Combat has no lull. She stabs a battledroid in its torso, slicing sideways to further demolish its body, and then they’re back into the rhythm of slice-dodge-deflect.

Shmi loses Ki-Adi-Mundi for a time - maybe seconds, maybe minutes. The fight seems to stretch on for hours, but the sun barely moves in the sky.

She finds him again eventually on the other side of the fortifications, looking winded and sweating as he stares off into the distance, a small group of clones guarding him. The droids are taking a moment to regroup, it looks like; they’re granted a brief moment of rest.

The cut on his face - Shmi had seen it earlier, of course, a thin burn down his right cheek. It’s bleeding, even through the natural cauterization of a lightsaber cut. Something must have… Slick’s earlier comment comes to mind. Something must have punched him in the face.

“There appears to be a tank approaching,” he says curtly. “If we can take it out while leaving it somewhat intact, it may be helpful in plugging these unfortunate gaps.”

“That’s how General Tachi and Commander Skywalker built them in the first place,” one of the clones says - his armor has dark orange script trailing down his chestplate, so he’s from Siri’s 409th. “Of course, there weren’t droids rushing the gaps when that happened–” he breaks off the explanation to fire his handheld laser cannon at a line of approaching droids.

“Their numbers are thinned, but not nearly enough,” Slick says. “We won’t be able to hold on forever.”

“We don’t need to,” Shmi reminds them all. “We only need to wait until all the wounded are safe, then we can retreat as well.”

“And to survive that long, we need those fortifications,” Slick snaps. “So how are we going to get that tank over here and take it out?”

“There are no other tanks near it,” Ki-Adi-Mundi says, his voice the tone it is when he’s considering something. “If we present a clear, unified target…”

“The plan is going to end up with us standing on top of the fortifications, presenting a target, isn’t it,” Shmi says. For all that Ki-Adi-Mundi is a good strategist and great tactician, many of his plans are… lacking in subtlety.

“Like hell it is,” Slick says. “There’s got to be a better plan than that. Look, the thing’s already moving towards us anyways - we need to focus on how we’re going to take it out.”

Shmi brushes her hand over the small pouch of plasma stones that still hangs at her side - she only has a few left, and needs to stock up, especially with… well, the war. But she’ll definitely offer their use here if–

“We’ve got concussion grenades,” one of the clones offers. “Pop one in the hold, the droids and controls are done for, and the tank’s still mostly solid.”

Slick nods sharply. “Let’s do that. Who–”

Something is _wrong_. It hits like a wave, her and Ki-Adi both; he presses a hand to his foreheads, and she closes her eyes, breathes deeply.

“It’s not Shaak Ti,” he says, his brow furrowed, but Shmi doesn’t have time to think about how close the two are, that he would be able to tell something like that.

“If it’s not her, it’s probably not Aayla,” she says. “And then…”

Shmi opens her eyes and clutches at her belt, at the pouch of plasma stones, at… at the japoor snippets hanging by the pouch.

“Anakin,” she says, then turns and _sprints_ back through the fortifications, back towards the infirmary, ignoring Slick and Ki-Adi-Mundi yelling at her to tell them what’s wrong.

A trooper meets her, one in the 144th’s colors, though it’s hard to tell with how little paint is on his uniform. This is one of the troopers who they’d brought from the downed star destroyer, whose job it was to monitor their communications.

“Grievous,” he says. “By the infirmary–”

“Shmi, _wait_!”

She doesn’t listen to Ki-Adi-Mundi, or to Slick’s further-behind shouts - Grievous will slaughter all the wounded soldiers who haven’t been airlifted out yet if she does nothing. It’s not just about Anakin and Siri - but it’s about them too, and she draws her lightsaber and runs.

The clash of lightsaber-on-lightsaber is hard to hear over the sounds of gunships and droids, but if she concentrates, there it is, loud and clear. Another gunship lifts off and then suddenly she can see them.

Grievous, his white chassis scorched and blackened on one side, like someone had set off an explosive right next to his head - but not badly wounded, his four lightsabers drawn and pointed at her son.

Anakin, his pale blue lightsaber furiously blocking Grievous’s attacks - he won’t be able to hold out forever. She doesn’t the other padawan - Sha’a Gi - but she can feel him close by, and she can see Siri on the ground, one of her prosthetic legs severed around the knee.

Across Hypori’s yellow dirt lie dead clones, none of them in their full armor. Wounded soldiers, killed on the ground.

Just for that, she would be willing to make Grievous very, very dead.

Shmi ignites her lightsaber, drawing both Anakin’s and Grievous’s attention.

It hums in her hand, and she thinks of Krell, how he had died, but not without Lockup’s sacrifice - and wonders which part she’s playing in this battle. Hers, or Lockup’s?

Well, she thinks, there’s only one way to find out.  


 

* * *

 

 

Siri opens her eyes to too-bright light and closes them again.

“General Tachi,” says a brisk clone voice. “You need to open your eyes so that I can check if you have a concussion.”

“Don’t wanna,” she slurs.

The clone sighs. “Look. General Tachi,” he says. “I’m a field medic in training. All our other medics are dead. There are only three things I know how to do - check for concussions, stop bleeding, and give injections of adrenaline. Only one of those things applies to this situation. Please don’t make me try attempting another.”

“You really don’t want him to try that,” a shaky voice pipes up - Sha’a Gi. So she’s in their makeshift infirmary.

Siri pries her eyes open. “Ugh,” she says. “Fine.”

He runs her through the basic tests - following his finger, remembering basic information. She passes, but she’s still dizzy and tired and one-legged, so she’s probably not going anywhere in a while. If it’s any comfort, neither is Sha’a, who’s missing an arm and has a large burn arcing down his chest that has to make it painful to breathe and talk.

“Oh, hey,” she remembers to ask once she’s gotten help sitting up and had a few sips of water. “What the hell am I doing out here? What happened to Grievous? Is everyone–“

“You _idiot_ ,” cuts in another voice.

“He’s right,” Sha’a says.

“I don’t know why you’re still talking, given how much that has to hurt,” the clone medic says exasperatedly, “But you’re both idiots.”

Siri winces. “Look,” she says. “I had limited options and a way to make my legs explode. Did it work, at least?”

Anakin Skywalker glares at her for a few moments, then sighs. “It definitely stunned him,” he says. “And cracked his armor a bit. He was slower - Master Mundi and Master Shaak and Aayla were holding him pretty well, so I got you out. Because he wasn’t going to pass up another opportunity to kill you while you were down and one-legged. You _idiot_.”

“Hey, at least this means it can’t get any worse if I have to blow up the other one, too,” Siri points out.

Anakin stares at her for a long moment, and Sha’a looks like he’s trying not to laugh - oops, that must make his chest hurt even more. “I’m going to need to figure out how to make detachable pieces,” he says. “So that if you try this again in the future, you won’t have to literally _get your leg sliced off by a lightsaber_.”

“That would be useful,” Siri says cheerfully, then pauses, her smile dipping down into a frown. “Wait. Back up like, five steps.”

Anakin, Sha’a, and the medic patiently wait as she mentally backs up five steps.

“There are more clones here than there were,” she says finally.

Anakin grins, bright and far happier than she’d expect him to be on this battlefield. “Mom showed up,” he says. “And brought the 144th legion.”

Siri blinks. And thinks this over. And says, “ _What_?”

“Apparently they had a really bad general,” Anakin says. “Nobody will tell me exactly what happened, but she apparently kicked him out, and somebody needed to take command - and then they got Master Mundi’s distress call, so…” he shrugs.

“All right,” Siri says, wondering when things had gotten so _weird_. She leans back against a rock - so their makeshift infirmary is just a flat area of ground that they’ve lined with rocks, whatever. “And they’re fighting back the droids?”

“They’re evacuating all our wounded,” the medic corrects. “You should be next–”

“You won’t be,” growls a now-familiar voice, and Siri’s blood runs cold.

“MOVE,” she yells, and pushes herself away from the rock, rolling _away_ , just as one of Grievous’s lightsabers slices into the rock where she’d been sitting.

A quick look is all she can spare, to see that the clone medic is carrying Sha’a away as fast as he can; then Siri focuses back on Grievous.

And Anakin, who has engaged Grievous, their lightsabers clashing against one another, Anakin not even having the space to make a single attack in between his blocks.

But he’s not overwhelmed, not yet - Grievous’s attacks are slower, shakier. Still not anywhere near _slow_ , still fast, but Siri has definitely accomplished something this battle.

If she can accomplish more, then that’ll just be the icing on the pastry - but she reaches for her lightsaber, and it’s not on her belt. Probably rolled away when she blew up her leg, she thinks. She could try blowing up her other leg, but there’s no way she’s doing that while it’s still attached to her body, and she doesn’t have a lightsaber to cut it off with.

All she can do is watch - watch as Anakin makes block after block, parry after parry, as he’s slowly pressed back and back, until the _snap-hum_ of another lightsaber igniting gains all their attention, giving Anakin room to back up, get some space between him and Grievous.

Shmi is standing in what Siri knows is a perfect makashi stance, her feet and body angled, her lightsaber pointed down at the ground but ready to rise. It’s an open stance, a challenge - _come try fighting me, and see how well you do_.

It’s an empty taunt, of course - Siri knows it, Shmi knows it.

Grievous… hesitates.

That’s what startles Siri the most, really - he hadn’t hesitated before taking on nine Jedi at once. What makes him hesitate about this one?

They stand there for what seems like a long moment but is probably just a few seconds, Grievous not attacking and Shmi standing there, her gaze fixed on him, her lightsaber highlighting the sands around her in green. The tension stretches between them, taut and making the rest of the battlefield fade away.

None of them, not even Siri, notice Anakin until he’s circled around the cyborg’s back, and slices straight through his leftmost two arms.

Grievous roars and spins, slicing towards Anakin, but Shmi strikes at him, forcing him to block instead of attack.

Siri has seen Grievous kicking people enough times, now, that she can see when his weight starts to shift. It occurs to her that there _is_ something that she can do, then, and just as he lifts his claw up off the ground to attack, she _shoves_ at him.

He’s just off-balance enough that he falls and rolls, away from Anakin and Shmi; he gains his balance again eventually and stands, but he’s meters away.

Grievous looks at her, his reptilian yellow eyes meeting her blue human ones; she grins at him, her teeth bared and vicious.

Then he turns and runs.

It’s interesting, seeing Shmi and Anakin in parallel, their backs to her, facing Grievous’s retreat; their resemblance is clear in their stance, in the way they sigh in relief and relax, then tense up again as they realize that there’s still more things to worry about. It would probably be funny, if Siri weren’t worried, too.

They turn to her at the same time, and Shmi strides over to Siri and kneels down; Anakin follows a few paces behind her.

“You’re all right?” Shmi asks. “What _happened_ to your leg?”

“She _blew it up_ ,” Anakin grumbles.

“ _General_!”

Siri looks up, and it takes her a moment to realize that it’s Shmi being addressed, by a clone she doesn’t know, with a few lines on his armor in… light blue? What legion is light blue?

“Rano,” Shmi says tiredly.

“He’s gone?” The clone - Rano - asks, scanning the battlefield before sighing in relief. “General, I really hope you know how much of a risk that was.”

“Of course I know,” she snaps, then closes her eyes. “But it needed to be taken.”

Rano shrugs. “Slick’s the one who’s going to be asking you for justifications.”

“And he’ll no doubt stick to my side like glue from now on,” she says, then opens her eyes, looking over at Rano, who’s standing there, his hands crossed behind his back. “Which is what you’re planning on doing, too, isn’t it. I don’t need an escort.”

Rano tilts his head. “Slick said that from what we’ve seen, Grievous is vulnerable to multiple simultaneous ranged attacks,” he says.

Siri blinks. “Wait, really?” she says, then pauses and thinks. “No, that makes sense, he’s not Force-sensitive, is he? He can’t precision-deflect blaster fire.”

“If I’d waited for backup, we might have been too late,” Shmi says, and Siri can hear the exhaustion in her voice. “I don’t know what exactly happened, but the end result is that I am uninjured and Grievous is wounded. We can decide the rest later, when we’re not in the middle of a battlefield.”

Rano nods sharply. “We’ve got three-quarters of the wounded evacuated, but we’re barely holding back the droids,” he reports. “General Mundi and Slick are still holding the southern fortifications, but only barely. The western ones have started to crumble, too - we need to get out of here soon.” There’s a faraway boom - Siri can only hope that the droids haven’t gotten the cannons back online yet.

Shmi looks down. “What are our losses, so far?”

For the first time since Siri has seen him, Rano hesitates. “General…”

“Mom,” says Anakin, quietly.

“I brought these men here,” she says.

“They chose to come,” Rano says.

“Did they?” Shmi asks quietly, and Siri wants to say yes, but - did they? She swallows, her throat suddenly dry. They didn’t - none of them chose this.

Shmi looks directly at Rano. “Tell me,” she says.

He looks away, around. “If we continue at our current rate, we’ll be defeated by nightfall,” he says instead.

“We won’t be,” Anakin says.

Rano looks at the younger Skywalker for a second, probably as confused as Siri is. “You can’t guarantee that,” he says.

“Yes,” Anakin says, and grins. “I can.” His face is tilted up, towards the sky. Looking up.

Siri tilts her head up as well. She doesn’t see anything, at first - it’s just the blue sky above, and the 144th’s star destroyer hanging above the battlefield, transports flying between it and the ground. Then there’s a faint grey blur in the sky above. She blinks to clear her eyes, shakes her head, and looks up again - and starts to grin.

A second star destroyer is descending, slowly but surely, through the sky. Gunships and transports pour out, circling the battlefield; droids and clones alike look up. Siri can feel the wave across the battlefield - hope, swelling and rising and breaking out into a ragged cheer that echoes across the whole field.

“What legion is that?” Siri asks - there’s a familiar feeling in the back of her mind. This is someone she knows, but who?

She meets Anakin’s eyes, then, and she knows.

“This is the 212th,” Anakin says. “Led by General Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

 

* * *

 

The bridge is tense - they come out of hyperspace in five minutes, and they all know what to expect. An ongoing space battle is possibly the best thing they’ll see, since that means that the 409th’s forces are still holding on.

Obi-Wan does not have much hope that they’ll exit hyperspace to find an ongoing space battle.

“Sir,” Commander Cody says quietly, at his shoulder. “You should at least take a seat–”

“I’m fine, Commander,” Obi-Wan says, his eyes fixed on the blue-white blur visible outside the ship’s windows. He _is_ fine. There’s not much he can do, from here; either they’re alive, or they’re not.

“Coming out of hyperspace,” calls one of the clones. “In seven… six… five…”

Obi-Wan runs through lists in his head. The pilots are ready to launch, starfighters and gunships both; their shields are up, their shipboard cannons are primed.

“Prepare for enemy combat,” he says.

“Prepared and ready, sir,” Commander Cody says.

“Four… three… two… one.”

The blue blur of hyperspace darkens into streaks and fades away, giving them a clear view of the blackness of space, the planet below them, and the field of debris that looks like it used to be a separatist fleet.

For a few seconds, the entire bridge is silent.

“Scan for life signs on the planet,” Obi-Wan orders after a moment. “Perhaps they were… successful?”

“General Mundi’s entire fleet went down,” Commander Cody points out.

Obi-Wan frowns. “True. But they’ve clearly been utterly destroyed. _Something_ must have happened.”

“Sir,” one of the officers calls. “We’re reading many life-signs on the planet, and look - there’s a star destroyer.”

“Let’s go join them, then,” Obi-Wan says. “No doubt they could use the help, or at least a helping hand.”

“Yes, sir!”

“General,” says Commander Cody. “Are you going to be on the bridge, or in a landing party?”

It doesn’t even take him a second to decide. “A landing party,” he says. “If… if any of the other Jedi have survived, I’ll be able to direct us to them.”

Commander Cody leads him through the decks - they’re nearly a maze, for all that there’s a clear layout and it’s theoretically logical. Part of Obi-Wan wants to be walking faster, _needs_ to be walking faster, to get to the transports as soon as possible, to make sure his padawan is still alive. The rest of him, the Jedi Master, takes slow, deliberate steps that only hurt a little.

It feels like it takes eons to reach the hangar, though - eons of the slow pace, eons of his leg aching just a hint more with every step. The handles on the transport, when they climb in, only provide a little relief, though a little is better than nothing.

“Hitting atmo in three, two, one,” announces the loudspeaker. The ship only jolts a bit as it meets the air’s resistance - much bigger is the jolt when he realizes that he can feel Anakin in the Force again.

He doesn’t nearly collapse from relief, but he does close his eyes, does sigh and let that worry float away into the Force, no longer anchored in the pit of his stomach.

Then the transport hums to life and they’re lifting up, out of the hangar, to fly down to the battlefield.

“Try to land near the center of the fortifications,” he says, after a few moments of concentration. “Where they’ve set up the infirmary.”

“Yes, sir,” calls the pilot. “Looks like they’re trying to evacuate the wounded, get them all up to the other star destroyer.”

“They’ve been trying to retreat, then,” Obi-Wan realizes.

Commander Cody nods. “They don’t have enough numbers to defeat the droid army, or to hold them off for long. They must be only staying because of the wounded.”

“Let’s give them the help they need to hold off for longer, then,” Obi-Wan orders.

“I’ll pass on the orders, sir,” Commander Cody says, as they land with a thump on Hypori’s yellow dirt.

Obi-Wan can’t fully conceal the grimace as his leg throbs with the impact; he can only hope that none of the clones noticed.

The transport’s sides open, letting in light and dust and Anakin.

“Master Obi-Wan,” he says, half his tone trying to stay respectful, half his tone just relieved.

Obi-Wan takes a few steps forwards and hugs his padawan.

“It’s good to see you up and about,” Anakin says quietly. “I was… worried.”

“Hey, Kenobi,” another voice calls from outside. “You finally get up off your butt and come join the fun?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it _fun_ ,” Obi-Wan says, pulling away from Anakin to turn to Siri and _where is her other leg_ . “What did you _do_?”

“She blew it up, apparently,” says another dry and tired voice.

“Shmi,” Obi-Wan says, and looks up at the star destroyer, then back at the other Jedi Master. “I… what?”

“That’s what I said,” Siri says. “Still haven’t gotten the full story.”

Shmi looks up at the star destroyer - her star destroyer - with something like regret in her eyes, but nothing like uncertainty in the way she stands. “We’ll have time to, now, with your reinforcements,” she says. “I promise I’ll explain everything to the Council. But not now.”

Anakin looks at her for a second, biting his lip; Obi-Wan puts a hand on his shoulder. “She’ll be fine,” he says. “Whatever happened - she’s strong.”

“It’s not really… about strength,” Anakin says quietly, but nods.

“Hm,” Obi-Wan says, and looks at Siri.

She tilts her head to the side and drops her grin, for a moment looking as serious as the situation deserves. Then she nods, once.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. “Why don’t you tell me about what’s been happening?”

Anakin looks around. “But there’s still so much to do,” he protests. “The evacuation’s not done, and the fighting is getting worse–”

“The fighting is getting better,” Commander Cody interjects. “My men are providing support; we can handle it, sirs. We’ve got gunships seeding the droids with grenades and short-range EMPs, and we can start flying down some more solid fortifications.”

“We have time,” Obi-Wan says.

“And General Kenobi needs to sit down somewhere,” Commander Cody says.

Obi-Wan feels his spine tense up. “I do not,” he says quietly.

“With all due respect, sir?” Commander Cody says. “Your leg looks like it’s been hurting since we got on the transport. We’ll handle the front lines; having someone coordinated in charge of the evacuation would be the most efficient strategy at this point.”

Obi-Wan feels his mouth compressing into a flat line, feels frustration well up that he can’t do _anything_ \- but Cody is right.

The only reason he says “Very well,” though, is because of his padawan.

The story comes out in bits and pieces, in between identifying the wounded troopers who are the worst off and figuring out how to best keep the transportation going.

“And what do you think about the decisions you’ve made?” Obi-Wan asks, one he has a general idea of the way things happened.

“Maybe I should have stayed and fought with Master Mundi, Master Shaak and Aayla,” Anakin says, looking out at the battlefield as they wait for the next transport. “But Siri needed to get out of there, and honestly, of all of them, I was having the hardest time against Grievous. Aayla’s fantastic at niman, she was really using the whole ‘turn the environment against him’ thing to its full advantage.”

“Niman does have many unexpected benefits,” Obi-Wan agrees. “And your last fight with Grievous?”

Anakin stares at him, confused. “I don’t understand, Master.”

“You could have been killed,” Obi-Wan points out. “You were the only uninjured Jedi available to face him, as far as you knew. And yet you didn’t retreat - you drew his attention, from what you’ve said.”

“I couldn’t just let him attack the _wounded_!” Anakin’s voice is horrified. “I couldn’t just leave Siri and Sha’a to die, or any of the soldiers - they were trusting me, relying on me. I couldn’t–”

Obi-Wan knows he can’t keep the smile off his face, which is probably why Anakin pauses and looks at him like that, like he’s not sure quite what is going on.

“This way,” Obi-Wan says, and levers himself up from where he’s been sitting on a rock.

Anakin hurries forwards to help him. “Are you actually following the healers’ instructions?”

“Mostly,” Obi-Wan admits. “Come on.”

“What’s going on?” Anakin asks warily, but Obi-Wan takes great pleasure in not replying as he walks - _slowly_ \- towards where the other Jedi have gathered. He only has so many chances to utterly confuse his padawan, after all.

Siri has steadfastly refused to be evacuated so far; Shmi, Aayla, Shaak Ti, and Ki-Adi-Mundi have been on and off the battlefield, as they’re needed and as they need rest. Fortuitously, they’re all gathered together at once; as Anakin and Obi-Wan draw near, Siri meets his eye. Obi-Wan nods once, deliberately, just as she had.

Before he says anything, he meets Shmi’s eyes. Ever since she joined the Order, bringing Anakin with her, she’s supported him, helped him through his hardest times. When Qui-Gon was injured - Obi-Wan swallows, remembering that Qui-Gon is missing now. Maybe–

No. That’s not something to think of now.

He meets Shmi’s eyes and smiles faintly, knowing that he’s just as much her family as Anakin is, now - and that it’s mutual.

Obi-Wan can see the moment she realizes what’s happening - and he can see her eyes light up. She nudges Shaak Ti, getting the other Master’s attention. Soon enough, they’re all looking at him.

“Anakin Skywalker,” Obi-Wan says, quietly but clearly, and Anakin’s spine straightens.

“Yes, Master?” he says.

There are traditional words here, but this isn’t a traditional situation. “You have faced hardships,” Obi-Wan says softly. “And trials aplenty. The Force is with you, with all of us - and so too are your knowledge, your skills, and your determination.” It’s the work of half a second to sever the braid that Anakin has grown over the past ten years, grown ever since he had sat down next to Obi-Wan in the gardens and waited for the new knight to ask that vital question. “Stand beside us, now, Anakin Skywalker. Jedi Knight.”

 

* * *

 

They cut it very, very close: both ships - the _Negotiator_ and the 144th’s unnamed star destroyer - have just prepared to make the jump to hyperspace when Separatist reinforcements enter the system.

Then the stars blur and the pull away to safety. Obi-Wan can feel the tension leak out of the ship, out of all the people on it. They’re safe now, safe to regroup and heal up.

“General Kenobi,” Cody says. “There’s a call for you - the Jedi High Council.”

Obi-Wan bites back a sigh. Safe, but always busy. “All right,” he says. “Would you lead the way, Commander?”

Cody salutes, then turns to walk beside him, keeping the same, slow pace that Obi-Wan walks at.

They’re met halfway there by Siri, limping cheerfully along with one leg and a crutch under the other arm, an exasperated clone medic trailing along behind her.

“General Kenobi, Commander Cody,” the medic says, and salutes. “CM-2553. General Tachi is insisting that she attend the meeting, sirs.”

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. “You should be lying down,” he tells Siri.

“Oh, please,” Siri says blithely. “I’m down a prosthetic, not _wounded_.”

“You need a crutch,” he points out.

“You _should_ have a crutch,” she retorts. “Besides, I was getting along just fine without one.”

“You were hopping,” the medic - CM-2553, though Obi-Wan isn’t especially comfortable with referring to someone with a number - says flatly. “And then you fell over, and got back up, and started hopping again.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, rubbing his eyes. “Sirs. My apologies for the insubordination–”

“No, no, you’re fine,” Siri interrupts, and keeps making her way down the corridors, forcing the other three to keep moving as well. “Come on, we don’t want a medic, of all people, hesitating to tell anyone something important. Besides, you might be CMO now anyways, by default.”

“I can’t be CMO,” the medic points out. “There has to be _some_ other medics from our battalion still alive.”

Cody looks the other clone up and down. “You’re a field medic,” he says. “But from what I’ve heard? There aren’t any medics left in the 409th. They’d be in the infirmaries, as wounded or as medics - and we haven’t gotten any other medics helping out. If you’re not CMO, you’re acting CMO. What’s your name?”

“Soner,” he says, looking a little lost. Then he pauses, and sighs. “General Tachi, let someone else open the door, you’re going to overbalance–”

“Jedi don’t overbalance,” Siri says, right before she overbalances. She hits the door’s switch on the way down, at least.

They’re not within range of the holotable, so the entire Jedi High Council doesn’t see her fall through the door - but Obi-Wan does, and it’s hilarious.

Siri glares at him as she pulls herself up.

Obi-Wan just walks through the door, a serene Jedi master, and only has to resist the urge to stick his tongue out at Siri a _little_ bit.

“Master Kenobi, Master Tachi,” Master Yoda greets them once they’re within the holotable’s range. “Waiting for Master and Padawan Skywalker, we are.” Ki-Adi-Mundi, Shaak Ti, and Aayla Secura had opted to travel on Shmi’s ship as well, but they’re already present.

“Actually, Masters,” Obi-Wan says, and inclines his head. “It’s Master Skywalker and _Knight_ Skywalker.”

They’re saved from debate and exclamations by Shmi and Anakin appearing on the holotable.

“I apologize for the delay,” Shmi says, and she and Anakin bow. “Logistics had to be taken care of.”

“As do they, always,” Yoda agrees. “Congratulations, young Skywalker, on your knighting.”

“Thank you, Masters,” Anakin says, and bows again. “Though really, it’s Master Kenobi’s fine training I have to thank.”

“As amusing as it would be to keep passing off the congratulations,” Mace Windu interrupts before Obi-Wan can defer, “We have serious business to get to.”

The good mood seems to seep out of the room as recent events are brought back to the forefront.

“Um, Generals, uh, Master Jedi,” Soner says, and everyone’s attention turns to him. The clone blushes from embarrassment - likely not visible through the blue of the hologram, but clear to Obi-Wan, Siri, and Cody. “CM-2553, acting CMO of the 409th. General Kenobi needs to sit down, sirs, regardless of whatever protocols there are for giving a report of this kind.”

“I’m fine,” Obi-Wan protests, even though his leg is… definitely feeling the stress of the day. “Really.”

Cody wordlessly procures a chair.

“I’ll sit if Siri will sit,” he says finally.

“I don’t need to sit,” she points out.

“You have _one leg_.”

“Why does Master Tachi only have one leg?” Adi Gallia, Siri’s old master, says, leaning forwards.

“… That’s a bit of a long story,” Siri says. “Why don’t we sit?”

It’s strange, facing the entire Jedi High Council while not standing. Though, to be fair, this isn’t the entire High Council - they’ve been locked in debate about who to appoint as their last member since Coleman Trebor was killed on Muunilinst.

“I should begin,” Shmi says quietly - oh, yes, the explanation as to why she’s leading the 144th instead of Master Krell.

“Master Skywalker,” Mace says, and inclines his head. “Master Ki-Adi-Mundi has told us that you have been commanding the 144th. Did something happen when you inspected the legion? Where is Master Krell.”

Obi-Wan can see Shmi grounding herself; she takes a moment, but when she replies to the council it’s with her head held high and her voice unwavering. “Master Krell attacked me, when I asked to use his communications hub. He implied that the Sith had told him that the council distrusted him and wished him out of power; to him, this was apparently enough provocation to draw his lightsabers and attempt to kill me and my escort.”

There’s silence throughout the call. Nobody can quite believe what they’re hearing, but neither can they disbelieve it; Obi-Wan finds his gaze drawn to the bandaged cut on Shmi’s cheek. He’d assumed that she’d gotten it on Hypori, but…

“When I went to his communications hub to inform you of the occurrences,” she continues through the silence, “I received two transmissions meant for Krell. One was Master Mundi’s emergency transmission; the other was a communication from Darth Vulsion.”

“Proof, then, that influencing him, the Sith were,” Master Yoda says, his ears drooping in sadness. “Averted a disaster in the making, you have; yet at great risk to yourself.”

Shmi smiles faintly, sadly. “Not without loss,” she says. “But I’m not sure that everything is so straightforward. There could be… complications, some of which were implied in a dream I had a few months ago.”

Obi-Wan feels a faint frown cross his face. The dream she’d had - about the banthas and the krayt dragons. Shmi knew which of the figures in the dream Vulsion was, he realized. How had she found out? Though… from what he’d felt on Geonosis, they could cross of the indecisive figure, or the figure disguising themself as an ally. That left two… and in all honesty, Obi-Wan could not see Vulsion as the figure who was, deep down, an ally.

Vulsion was the krayt dragon who disguised herself as a krayt dragon - but what did that _mean_?

But the council moves on, and Obi-Wan makes himself focus back on Shmi’s report.

“We received Master Mundi’s transmission,” she says, “And realized that we would be able to get to Hypori faster than anyone else. We arrived on the far side of the planet from the battle as a precaution, since we knew that the fleet had been destroyed by ground-based cannons; from there, we snuck up from behind the army, took control of the cannons, and used them to destroy the Separatists’ space forces.”

“Ingenious,” Master Gallia murmurs. “Were you able to get the design specs of the cannons?”

“I’ll make sure they’re forwarded to you,” Shmi promises.

Eeth Koth crosses his arms. “You appear to have taken command very competently,” he says. “Is this a position you wish to continue in?”

“It is,” Shmi says.

“Sure, you are, of this,” Master Yoda says slowly.

“It is a change,” she says softly. “But I have to be in a position to do the most good for everyone involved.” There’s a hint of emphasis on the word ‘everyone,’ like she and Master Yoda have discussed something - something that Anakin and Siri seem to react to, as well. Obi-Wan wants an explanation, wants to know what’s going on (and, likely, how he’ll be able to help), but now isn’t the time.

“A report of the battle on Hypori, we have received, from Masters Mundi and Ti,” Master Yoda says - they must have taken longer arriving than Obi-Wan had thought. “A last order of business, there is.”

Obi-Wan knows that Anakin wants to propose his idea of a campaign on Tatooine, but the Council can’t have heard about that yet; he exchanges a glance with Siri, but she has no clue what they want, either.

“A space, there is, on this council,” Master Yoda says.

“A space that needs to be filled,” Master Windu continues.

It’s going to be Shmi, Obi-Wan thinks. She’s been changing the Order so much, and now she’ll be in a position to do so much more–

“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Shaak Ti says softly.

What.

If Obi-Wan had the presence of mind to think of it, he’d realize that the expression on his face is the same one that had been on Anakin’s, hours before. But he’s too busy being surprised.

“ _What_?” he says, not even minding that he’s showing his surprise to a room full of Jedi.

Adi Gallia… snickers. “You are young for a council seat, true,” she says. “But then so was Depa. You’ve shown a great deal of skill in not only your ability with your lightsaber, but also as a diplomat, a teacher, a strategist - don’t think that nobody noticed you taking notes on the general shape of the war.”

Obi-Wan didn’t think that anyone _had_ noticed - those notes had been for him to get a better idea of what was going on, not to help formulate strategy!

“You’ve been a leader,” Depa Billaba says, “Even during your time recovering from your injury, you have helped out people in many small ways - and it is the small things that always matter most, in the end.”

Saesee Tiin crosses his arms. “You never lose at Dejarik any more,” he says. “I don’t know if you’re cheating or planning. Use both of those.”

“Very well,” he says. “I - I suppose I cannot argue against that.”

“Accept, do you, the position of Councilor of the Jedi Order?” Master Yoda asks.

“I do,” Obi-Wan says, and bows from his seat. When he straightens, Shmi and Anakin are both grinning openly at him, the same expression on their similar faces - and he’s a councilor now. He’ll have more work, more things to plan, to consider, to get done. More paperwork, ugh, but also…

“In that case,” he says. “As a… as a member of the High Council, I’d like to propose a campaign suggested to me by Knight Skywalker.”

Several eyes glance towards Anakin, who takes that as his cue to step forwards; the only one who doesn’t seem surprised by this is Siri, who’d given Anakin the seed of the idea in the first place. Obi-Wan can’t wait to see what Shmi thinks of it.

“We’ve never been more in need of safe hyperspace routes,” he says - that’s a good angle of attack for convincing the Council, Obi-Wan notes. “There are major hyperspace routes through the outer rim that are currently controlled by the Separatist faction - but they’re controlled by the Separatists because they’re controlled by the Hutts.”

Shmi’s sharp inhale is audible even over the holocall.

“You wish to go to Tatooine,” Master Windu says.

“I do,” Anakin says. “And I want to take the army with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this has taken so long - school's been hectic, but I think I'm starting to get into the general rhythm of it. Just in time for the semester to be ending in about a month! Good timing, me.
> 
> So, as will probably soon be becoming clear to everyone, I've decided to use NaNoWriMo to continue this AU. The chapters may be a little rougher than my usual; if anyone notices any glaring errors or is confused in any place, tell me, and I'll try and fix it!
> 
> Depending on how my muse turns, the next installment is going to be one of two things (or maybe those two things overlapping. Because my muse appears to like jumping around, for reasons unclear to me) - either something following Anakin's campaign on Tatooine, or something following Jango and Boba some more. Even I'm not sure what it's going to be - and now that I've mentioned those two things, there's a chance it'll be neither. Oh well.
> 
> As always, I'm open to questions, comments, or just general chatter on my [tumblr](http://mirandatam.tumblr.com)!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](http://mirandatam.tumblr.com), as always!


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